Article Index      Subscribe to DrugWar Discussion and News List      News Archive      Preston Peet       How Drug Money Works      Save the Akha      You Are Being Lied To Excerpts      Drug Testing News      The Light Side     Great Links      Link To Us!      Bookstore      Home

Order "Underground- The Disinformation Guide to Ancient Civlizations, Astonishing Archeology and Hidden History" Edited by DrugWar.com editor Preston Peet- On Book Store Shelves Now!

Order "Under the Influence- the Disinformation Guide to Drugs" by DrugWar.com editor Preston Peet- On Bookstore Shelves

Gunmen kill 17 people at a drug rehab in Mexico (Sept. 3, 2009)
"Authorities had no immediate suspects or information on the victims. Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, is Mexico's most violent city, with at least 1,400 people killed this year alone. Most of the homicides are tied to drug gang violence, which has taken a heavy toll across Mexico. Earlier the same day, gunmen ambushed and killed a senior security official in the home state of President Felipe Calderon."

Burma's Opium Production Back on Rise (Sept. 2, 2009)
"A Feb. 2 report by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime found that the price of opium in Burma, also known as Myanmar, increased by 15% last year. As a result, Burmese land dedicated to poppy cultivation actually expanded in 2008, despite promises by the country's ruling junta to combat its reputation as one of the world's most notorious narco-states."

Is the Taliban Stockpiling Opium? And If So, Why? (Sept. 2, 2009)
"If international drug- and law-enforcement officials are right, the Taliban might be hiding up to $3.2 billion worth of opium inside Afghanistan, potentially causing huge complications for NATO's decision this month to attack Afghanistan's opium laboratories and smuggling networks. If it exists, the drug stockpile would also have a major bearing on Afghan officials' tentative peace talks with the Taliban, which are favored by U.S. Central Command chief General David Petraeus and both U.S. presidential candidates."

Report: Afghanistan's Opium Boom May Be Over (Sept. 2, 2009)
"But there is a twist. Afghan poppy crops are now high-yield, say U.N. officials, thanks to better irrigation methods and especially good rains over the past year. While acreage devoted to the flowers fell, production of opium itself dropped only 10% in Afghanistan last year, to about 6,900 tons. Each hectare of poppies yielded about 123 lb. (56 kg) of opium — 15% more than last year."

Mexico is safer than in the past, minister says (August 25, 2009)
"Mexico decriminalized the use of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin [Friday, August 21, 2009]. The move will help focus on major traffickers, officials said."

AP Source: Michael Jackson's death ruled homicide (August 25, 2009)
"While the finding does not necessarily mean a crime was committed, it means more likely that criminal charges will be filed against Dr. Conrad Murray, the Las Vegas cardiologist who was caring for Jackson when he died June 25 in a rented Los Angeles mansion."

Marines assault Taliban town in Afghanistan (August 12, 2009)
"Marines said they killed between seven and 10 militants in Wednesday's push and seized about 66 pounds (30 kilograms) of opium, which the militants use to finance their insurgency. Troops hope to restore control of the town so that residents can vote in the election."

U.S. Military Base Plan Puts Colombia in Hot Water (August 12, 2009)
"As one of the few surviving pro-U.S. conservative heads of state in a continent that has swung left, Colombia's President, Alvaro Uribe, is used to being at odds with his neighbors. But accustomed though he may be to swimming against Latin America's political tide, Uribe is scrambling to explain his less-than-transparent decision to allow the U.S. military to use air bases on Colombian soil to track drug traffickers and even rebels."s

Phony Stats on Cocaine Prices Hide Truth About War on Drugs (July 22, 2009)
"John Walters had some data he wanted to make public, but he also had a credibility problem. Just two years earlier, in 2005, Walters, the country’s drug czar, had cited a hike in the price of cocaine as a battlefield victory in the war on drugs—only to see the price fall just as he was touting the increase. He was ridiculed in some quarters of the press; others decided to stop listening to him. This time around, in the summer of 2007, Walters went looking for the most receptive audience he could find. So he zipped down New York Avenue to the headquarters of The Washington Times, the conservative daily based in the outskirts of Washington, D.C. Walters, according to a staffer present at the briefing, came with a small staff and a stack of glossy pages making the case that the United States had turned a corner in the war on drugs. Prices for cocaine, he said, were rising fast. And that, he explained, can only mean a decline in supply. The Times wouldn’t bite. The data were suspiciously thin."

Foreign Policy Magazine Exposes Folly of Marijuana Ban (July 22, 2009)
"The reason why the editor of Foreign Policy magazine Moises Naim's recent column is significant is because for far too long the foreign policy community has been a willing conduit for exporting America's wrongheaded and failed cannabis prohibition around the globe. But, the American dominance of the drug policy debate has started to wane over the last 8-10 years in quarters like the United Nations, and columns like Mr. Naim's underscore the myriad reasons why America's elected policymakers need to adopt a reform mindset--notably under an Obama administration--not status quo retrenchment into an unyielding, prohibition-centric cannabis policy."

Drug czar: Feds won't support legalized pot (July 22, 2009)
"The federal government is not going to pull back on its efforts to curtail marijuana farming operations, Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Wednesday in Fresno. The nation's drug czar, who viewed a foothill marijuana farm on U.S. Forest Service land with state and local officials earlier Wednesday, said the federal government will not support legalizing marijuana. 'Legalization is not in the president's vocabulary, and it's not in mine,' he said. Kerlikowske said he can understand why legislators are talking about taxing marijuana cultivation to help cash-strapped government agencies in California. But the federal government views marijuana as a harmful and addictive drug, he said. 'Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit,' Kerlikowske said in downtown Fresno while discussing Operation SOS -- Save Our Sierra -- a multiagency effort to eradicate marijuana in eastern Fresno County."

Who Are the Drug Lords? (July 21, 2009)
"Who are the drug lords? They are every politician who lives and breathes war, drugs, terror or otherwise. They are the corrupt corporate heads, malicious media barons, venomous judges and cretinous cops, who, knowing full well the truth, choose to follow their nose to riches, to embrace a lie, to feed their evil cornucopia with the lives of their fellow man."

Something Is Happening Down There (July 21, 2009)
"The battle against the drug gangs is a complicated one. A lot of money is involved, and the drug lords are pretty smart. They now keep a lot of their processing (opium into morphine or heroin) labs mobile. The vehicles travel with armed guards, but force is a last resort. The security detachment is also armed with a lot of cash, and the first weapon to be deployed is a bribe. That usually works. But the U.S. intelligence troops are after the drug gangs now, and this makes concealment more difficult. The U.S. military isn't releasing any play-by-play of these operations, lest they provide useful information to the enemy. It won't be until the end of August that an initial assessment is possible, and not until the end of the year until one can check the trends in wholesale and retail prices for heroin. As Afghanistan heroin production grew since the 1990s, the world supply has doubled, and prices have come down by about 50 percent. More people are using, and dying from, heroin. And now we can add many of the victims of the fighting in southern Afghanistan to that toll."

Worldwide production of heroin and cocaine falling, says UN drug chief (July 20, 2009)
"Drug use should be treated more as an illness than a crime, the head of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime said today as the body's annual report announced a worldwide decline in the production of cocaine and heroin. The report for 2009 called for traffickers to be targeted rather than users and announced that there was a worldwide growth in synthetic drugs.""

Chavez Attacks US Report Naming Venezuela a ‘Narcotics State’ (July 20, 2009)
This is a great way of making one's unliked leftist darker-skinned President of a South American country look bad to the US public while simutaneously helping justify the spending of US tax money to maybe, just maybe, do things like, say, destabilize Venezuala, the country Chavez currnetly heads? Chavez has long been a very irritating thorn in the Us' side. How long he will remain as President, well, let's all wish him the best.

Revolutionary Latin America and Today's Nexus of Terror (July 20, 2009)
"The irony of the narcotics scourge alone is how the massive accrued wealth of the narco-terrorist’s hierarchy is at the expense of the citizenry and the victims, as a nation must struggle with the overwhelming massive resources needed to defend their homeland. It has been reported that Mexican drug syndicates “generate more revenue than at least 40% of Fortune 500 companies.” And let’s face it – Mexico remains under siege.

Marijuana Legalization: CBS News Poll Has Support at 41% Nationwide (July 19, 2009)
"A CBS News poll conducted over the weekend has found that 41% of Americans support marijuana legalization, while 52% oppose, and 7% are undecided. The figure matches that of a January CBS News poll. Support dropped to 31% in an April CBS News poll before rebounding this month."

Most ‘Trusted Man In America’, Also Supported Marijuana Law Reform (July 19, 2009)
"RIP Walter Cronkite! In the summer 1992, I was told by an assistant that I had a phone call, and that 'unless the person on the phone was kidding, that it was someone claiming to be Walter Cronkite.'..."Drug war is a war on families By Walter Cronkite Article Published: Sunday, August 08, 2004"
" In the midst of the soaring rhetoric of the recent Democratic National Convention, more than one speaker quoted Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, invoking 'the better angels of our nature.' Well, there is an especially appropriate task awaiting those heavenly creatures - a long-overdue reform of our disastrous war on drugs. We should begin by recognizing its costly and inhumane dimensions."

State helps ease drug offenders’ release (July 19, 2009)
"NEW YORK STATE — In the fall, low-level drug offenders will begin trickling out of state prisons and into treatment programs under the landmark state drug law reforms passed earlier this year. Legislation dismantling most of the state’s strict Rockefeller drug laws was signed into law in April by Gov. David Paterson. The bill repealed many of the state’s mandatory minimum prison sentences for lower-level drug offenders."

World drugs in graphics (July 19, 2009)
"A UN agency has published a comprehensive report on the worldwide illicit drugs market, the World Drug Report 2009. The graphs and maps below show the extent of the problem and measures to tackle it."

DEA boosts its war in Afghanistan (July 19, 2009)
"The move is seen as a recognition that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won with military force alone. Until near the end of its eight years in office, the Bush administration failed to link the drug traffickers in Afghanistan with the rising insurgency, basing its anti-drug campaign primarily on an effort to destroy the vast fields of poppy that produce more than 90 percent of the world's heroin....After Sept. 11, the Bush administration's focus on counterterrorism and, later, the war in Iraq, extensively depleted U.S. global counternarcotics efforts, especially in South Asia, they say. The DEA also suffered from hiring freezes, budget cuts and a lack of political support despite its intelligence showing ever-closer links between drug traffickers and terrorist groups."

La Familia cartel kills 12 federal agents in Mexico drug war attack (Jully 19, 2009)
"A powerful Mexican drug cartel has unleashed a killing spree against the authorities in a challenge to the leadership of the President in his home state....The perception that the war against drugs is being lost is pervasive. A poll published in Milenio said that only 28 per cent of Mexicans believed that the Government was winning, and more than half thought that it was losing."

Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories (July 17, 2009)
"It's a corrupt cops twofer for New Jersey, another twofer for Indiana, a two-for-one special on Texas deputies, and a lone prison guard in Florida. Let's get to it...."

Heroin is "Good for Your Health": Occupation Forces support Afghan Narcotics Trade (May 10, 2007)
"The occupation forces in Afghanistan are supporting the drug trade, which brings between 120 and 194 billion dollars of revenues to organized crime, intelligence agencies and Western financial institutions."

U.S., allies seen as losing drug war (May 7, 2007)
"The United States and its Latin American allies are losing a major battle in the war on drugs, according to indicators that show cocaine prices dipped for most of 2006 and U.S. users were getting more bang for their buck."

101-year-old Zambian man nabbed over cannabis cultivation, trafficking (May 3, 2007)
"DEC spokesperson Rosten Chulu confirmed the arrest of Timothy Chilekwa, a peasant farmer of Namembo village in Southern province who was born in 1906. Chulu said the old man was nabbed for alleged unlawful cultivation of cannabis weighing 1.2 tons. He was also found trafficking two sacks of cannabis weighing 6. 95 kg, Chulu said. The spokesperson said the 101-year-old would appear in court soon."

Was Timothy Leary Right? (May 3, 2007)
"Are psychedelics good for you? It's such a hippie relic of a question that it's almost embarrassing to ask. But a quiet psychedelic renaissance is beginning at the highest levels of American science, including the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and Harvard, which is conducting what is thought to be its first research into therapeutic uses of psychedelics (in this case, Ecstasy) since the university fired Timothy Leary in 1963. But should we be prying open the doors of perception again? Wasn't the whole thing a disaster the first time? The answer to both questions is yes."

The Farce of the War on Drugs (May 1, 2007)
"My brother Howard Wooldridge served as a decorated police officer and detective in Lansing, Michigan for 18 years. During that time, he collared killers, drunk drivers, child molesters, rapists, wife beaters and drug dealers. What he learned launched him on a crusade to stop the federal government’s useless 35 year 'War on Drugs.'"

Coca Growers Shake the Andes Once Again (April 27, 2007)
"During the last few days, coca growers, especially in Peru and Colombia, have been in the news again, as their actions have given the media something to talk about."

LSD as Therapy? Write about It, Get Barred from US (April 27, 2007)
"BC psychotherapist denied entry after border guard googled his work."

No Jail for Willie Nelson on Drug Charge (April 25, 2007)
While the editor of DrugWar.com applauds this decision by the judge, I can't help but wonder how hard the judge would have thrown the book at me for the exact same offense.

The War on Salvia Divinorum Heats Up (April 14, 2007)
"Middlebury, Vermont, this week declared a public health emergency to prevent a local business from selling it. It's already illegal in five states -- Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Delaware -- and a number of towns and cities across the country, and now politicians in at least seven other states have filed bills to make it illegal there. For the DEA, it is a 'drug of concern.'"

Book Offer: Lies, Damn Lies, and Drug War Statistics (April 14, 2007)
"Normally when we publish a book review in our Drug War Chronicle newsletter, it gets readers but is not among the top stories visited on the site. Recently we saw a big exception to that rule when more than 2,700 of you read our review of the new book Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug War Statistics: A Critical Analysis of Claims Made by the Office of National Drug Control Policy."

Plant growers served search warrant (April 11, 2007)
"Three WSU students were surprised when a plant they were growing in their closet was mistaken for marijuana."

California in bid to impose 7.25% sales tax on cannabis (April 10, 2007)
"For decades, smoking marijuana has been an illicit affair, a key anti-establishment ritual for America's counter-culture underground. But the legalisation of the drug for medicinal purposes in California has presented its advocates with a dilemma: to remain firmly on the wrong side of the law or accept a demand to pay taxes on its sale."

The Other War: Democratic Candidates are Deafeningly Silent on the Drug War (April 9, 2007)
"There is a major disconnect in the 2008 Democratic race for the White House. While all the top candidates are vying for the black and Latino vote, they are completely ignoring one of the most pressing issues affecting those constituencies: the failed War on Drugs, a war that has morphed into a war on people of color."

Ex-officer likens drug war to Prohibition (April 8, 2007)
"Retired police officer Peter Christ on Tuesday compared the contemporary war on drugs to National Prohibition of the 1920s."

Minnesota drug laws: Are they too harsh? (April 8, 2007)
Momentum gathers for review of sentencing rules

Drug Czar Blasted for Lack of Leadership (April 8, 2007)
"During the course of research for this series, it became apparent that many prominent players in the war on drugs don't have many compliments for the current drug czar, John Walters."

Is the Drug War Nearing an End? (April 8, 2007)
"Little by little by little there is some hope that the "war" on drugs is becoming a political issue - the first step in undoing a set of policies that make little sense no matter how you look at them."

Law Enforcement Group Visits Maine To Advocate For Legalization Of Drugs (April 8, 2007)
"LEAP, or Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, says it has 5,000 members, made up mostly of retired and active law enforcement professionals. The group tours the country speaking to various civic groups about what they call a $60 billion failed war on drugs."

Afghans pin hopes on a new economy (April 8, 2007)
"As a competitive economy awakens in one of the world's poorest countries, the residents of Kabul are jockeying to get ahead in a city flush with cash from US soldiers, foreign aid workers, new investors, parliamentarians, and drug traffickers."

Salvadoran Murders in Guatemala (April 8, 2007)
"If the trip to Guatemala was a fiasco, Colombia was no better, Bush's arrival in Bogotá couldn't have happened at a worse time as every moment ticked off another scandal, some of them leading in the direction ofo President Uribe's office, and nothing that Bush or Uribe president could say concealed the fact that the Colombia phase of the U.S. anti-drug war was more dead than alive, which was even more certain when it came to extraditing Colombian suspected felons to the U.S."

Analysis: U.S. anti-drug war in Afghanistan (April 8, 2007)
"In a bluntly worded letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the lawmakers said inter-agency rivalry and U.S. policy failures in Afghanistan risked allowing it to slide back into chaos."

Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories (April 7, 2007)
"A Georgia fire captain gets caught peddling coke, a pair of New Haven narcs lose their jobs, a former Mississippi police chief cops a plea, and a former Ohio cop goes back to prison. Let's get to it...."

Methamphetamine: Feds Make First Cold Medicine Bust Under Combat Meth Act (April 7, 2007)
"An Ontario, New York, man last Friday won the dubious distinction of being the first person arrested under the 2005 Combat Meth Epidemic Act. According to a DEA press release, William Fousse was arrested for purchasing cold tablets containing more than nine grams of pseudoephedrine within a one month period."

Harm Reduction: New Mexico Governor Signs Overdose Death Reduction Measure (April 7, 2007)
"New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) Wednesday signed innovative legislation that would protect friends or family members who seek medical attention for drug overdose victims. The law is the first of its kind in the country."

Pot-Growing Takes Root in the Suburbs (April 1, 2007)
"In Coldwater Creek, a middle-class housing development outside Atlanta, the neighbors mind their own business and respect each other's privacy - ideal conditions, it turns out, for growing marijuana in the suburbs."

Bob Barr Flip-Flops on Pot (March 28, 2007)
"Bob Barr, who as a Georgia congressman authored a successful amendment that blocked D.C. from implementing a medical marijuana initiative, has switched sides and become a lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project."

What the heck is Sibel Edmonds' Case about? And why should I care? (March 28, 2007)
"Essentially, there is only one investigation – a very big one, an all-inclusive one... But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it... You can start from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the Plame case. You can start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they revolve around the same nucleus of people."

Mexican Envoy Highly Critical of U.S. Role in Anti-Drug Effort (March 23, 2007)
"The United States has contributed 'zilch' to Mexico's efforts to combat the nations' joint problem with criminal narcotics gangs, Mexico's new ambassador to Washington said yesterday."

Colorado Has Song in Its Heart, and Not Drugs on Its Mind (March 14, 2007- Free NYTimes registration required)
"The Colorado General Assembly wants to be quite clear on this point: When the singer-songwriter John Denver praised the joys of Colorado and sang about 'friends around the campfire, and everybody’s high,' in 1972, he was not referring to illicit drugs. Definitely not. Don’t even think it. The high in question, lawmakers say, is really about nature and the great outdoors — the tingly feeling you get after a nice hike, perhaps."

U.S. faults friends, foes in drug war (March 5, 2007)
"The United States said top anti-terror allies Afghanistan, Pakistan and Colombia had fallen short in the war on drugs despite enhanced counter-narcotics efforts and it criticized perennial foes Iran, North Korea and Venezuela for not cooperating."

Cuba’s War on Drugs (March 5, 2007)
"A review of the main results of the Cuban efforts against illegal drug trafficking as well as prevention during 2006, shows a marked reduction in the presence of drugs on the island, with 1.7 tons of narcotics seized, the lowest figure of the past 11 years and almost four times less than the amount detected in 2003."

Drug War Corrupting Cops In Hawaii and Elsewhere (March 5, 2007)
"Claiming to be the 'world’s leading drug policy newsletter,' the Drug War Chronicle publishes a regular online feature called, 'This Week’s Corrupt Cops Stories.' The typical Hawaii newspaper reader probably comes across these cops-gone-bad stories pretty rarely. But, when hundreds of reports compiled over the past year from around the nation are read at one sitting, they add up to a hidden cost of America’s ill-fated drug war -- widespread corruption inside local police departments, prisons and jails."

Drug war rips apart Mexico (March 5, 2007)
"More than 250 people were executed last year in Acapulco as the sweltering Pacific resort became the latest battleground between rival cartels battling for supremacy of the multibillion-dollar drug trade."

In Guatemala, officers' killings echo dirty war (March 5, 2007)
"The two sets of brazen killings set off a vicious diplomatic conflict between Guatemala and El Salvador — heightened by news reports suggesting that the congressmen were indeed drug dealers — and ignited a political scandal here. It shed light on how corrupt the National Police has become, and raised questions about links between drug dealers and high-level police officials, as well as whether the government can contain drug trafficking without international help."

Collision Course: Bolivia's "Coca, Si; Cocaine, No" Policy Runs Afoul of the International Drug Control Board and, Probably, the United States (March 1, 2007)
"A confrontation is brewing over Bolivian President Evo Morales' effort to rationalize coca production in his country and expand markets for coca-based products....Now, the Morales government is also pushing for expanded legal markets for coca products and, in a joint venture with the Venezuelan government, is preparing to begin coca product exports to that country."

Ga. Reconsiders No - Knock Warrant Rules (March 1, 2007)
"A group of lawmakers wants to make it harder for police to use ''no-knock'' warrants in the wake of a shootout that left an elderly woman dead after plainclothes officers stormed her home unannounced in a search for drugs."

Here we go again (Feb. 22, 2007)
"We're happy we could help with that, Mr. Vice President, but Colombian cocaine is still readily available in U.S. cities, so we have a difficult time thinking we got a good deal for our $4 billion. In fact, we don't believe Americans are getting their money's worth for any of the cash the government has thrown into the bottomless pit of the drug war. Court dockets are packed and prisons are overcrowded, yet illicit drugs are still readily available to anyone who wants them."

Latin America: Mexico Moves to Decriminalize Drug Possession -- So It Can Concentrate on Drug Traffickers (Feb. 22, 2007)
"Legislators from Mexican President Felipe's Calderon's National Action Party (PAN -- Partido de Accion Nacional) have introduced a bill in the Mexican Senate that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs for 'addicts.'"

DPS officials were told of lax lab security (Feb. 22, 2007)
"Texas Department of Public Safety officials were aware of security breaches in the handling of their drug evidence as recently as 2006 and as far back as at least 2003 — problems such as failure to log evidence out of storage, containers of marijuana left open and the lack of a monitoring system for a high-security drug vault — according to the agency's internal audits."

'Safest city' now has drug war (Feb. 22, 2007)
"From the shopping malls and the fashionable clothes of its residents, this could be any affluent U.S. suburb. Residents pride themselves on their prosperity. But in recent weeks, drug-related violence has shattered the tranquillity."

Mexican president gives soldiers pay hike as drug war intensifies (Feb. 22, 2007)
"Soldiers waging a nationwide offensive against drug traffickers will get a pay hike of nearly 50 percent this year in a bid to insulate them from corruption, Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced Monday."

New Federal Study Shows Methamphetamine Use Decreased Between 2002 and 2005 (Jan. 31, 2007)
"A new analysis of data from The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) shows that past-year use of methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant, declined between 2002 and 2005 among persons age 12 or older....The study also shows that the number of persons who used methamphetamine for the first time in the 12 months before the survey remained stable between 2002 and 2004 but decreased between 2004 and 2005."

Tell Governor Spitzer to Support Rockefeller Drug Law Reform (Jan. 31, 2007)
"The Rockefeller Drug Laws require extremely harsh prison terms for the possession or sale of relatively small amounts of drugs. Most of the people incarcerated under these laws are convicted of low-level, nonviolent offenses, and many of them have no prior criminal records. Today 14,139 people are locked up for drug offenses in NY State prisons, comprising nearly 38% of the prison population. This costs New Yorkers over half a billion dollars a year. Send a message to Governor Spitzer now, urging him to support real reform."

Mexico eyes Colombian experience in drug battle (Jan. 27, 2007)
"Mexico's top prosecutor on Thursday looked to Colombia's experience in counter-narcotics and conflict for lessons to help his government battle drug cartels whose violence has engulfed parts of the country."

Rio gang kills seven as drug war spreads (Jan. 27, 2007)
"The mutilated bodies of seven youths, some with their heads and legs chopped off, have been found in an abandoned car in a notorious Rio de Janeiro slum. They appeared to be the latest victims of a long-running drug war that has made Rio, which depends heavily on tourism, one of the most violent cities in the world."

Drug Policy Reform Group to Partner with State of New Mexico in Federally-Funded Meth Prevention Education Program (Jan. 27, 2007)
"In a first for drug reform organizations, the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) New Mexico office has been designated to create a statewide methamphetamine education and prevention program directed at high school students, thanks to a $500,000 grant obtained by US Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) as part of a Justice Department appropriations bill. The grant is the result of years of close collaboration between DPA and New Mexico state and local officials dating back to the administration of former Gov. Gary Johnson (R), a prominent voice for drug law reform."

Spot in brain may control smoking urge (Jan. 27, 2007)
"Damage to a silver dollar-sized spot deep in the brain seems to wipe out the urge to smoke, a surprising discovery that may shed important new light on addiction. The research was inspired by a stroke survivor who claimed he simply forgot his two-pack-a-day addiction - no cravings, no nicotine patches, not even a conscious desire to quit."

Case highlights medical-pot dilemma (Jan. 23, 2007)
"'If they didn't arrest me with 1,500, it's not likely they're going to come back and arrest me for 50,' said Sarich, whose advocacy group, CannaCare, says it has provided marijuana plants for 1,200 patients all over the state. Some of his new plants, delivered by patients in Longview, Federal Way and Vancouver, Wash., are descendants of the plants he lost."

Alleged cartel members extradited to Texas (Jan. 23, 2007)
"A suspected Mexican drug lord whose cartel allegedly smuggled more than 4 tons of cocaine a month over the U.S. border will stand trial in Texas. Osiel Cardenas-Guillen, the alleged kingpin of the Gulf Cartel, and three other alleged drug lords appeared in a Houston court Monday. Mexican authorities delivered Cardenas-Guillen and 14 other alleged Mexican drug dealers and criminals to Houston late Friday and early Saturday, the Drug Enforcement Administration said."

Burdened U.S. military cuts role in drug war (Jan. 22, 2007)
"Stretched thin from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has sharply reduced its role in the war on drugs, leaving significant gaps in the nation's narcotics interdiction efforts."

S.F. area is No. 1 for regular drug use, study says (Jan. 21, 2007)
"The San Francisco metropolitan area has a higher percentage of people who are regular drug users than any other major metropolitan area in the USA, a study from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found."

Executive Order 13420 -- Dismantling the DEA (Jan. 21, 2007)
"This is the order I will sign after delivering my inaugural address," says Steve Kubby, who is again running for office this time seeking the nomination from the Libertarian Party as their Presidential candidate.

Cocaine found on 99.9% of UK banknotes (Jan. 21, 2007)
"Pretty well every banknote in the UK shows traces of cocaine, forensic scientists have claimed. According to a report in the Sunday Telegraph, 99.9 per cent of the two billion notes currently in circulation have come into contact with Bolivian marching powder."

A Legacy of Torture: From Cointelpro to the Patriot Act (Jan. 21, 2007)
"In today's world, the US government's use of torture and complicity in its clients' use of it is part of the headlines on a regular basis. Yet very few US citizens believe that methods like waterboarding, beating, and electrical shocks could be -- and have been -- used on US citizens." But the fact that torture is used profusely in US jails and prisons is unsurprising to those who've been inside the US "justice" system.

Reefer Madness (Jan. 21, 2007)
"I was never an activist until I got busted [noted Tommy Chong]. But it ’s not so much my efforts as the substance itself. Pot lives and dies on its own reputation....Years ago, people would do booze jokes. Then they start dying of cirrhosis of the liver and all these alcohol-related car accidents. Alcohol started out as a fun thing and ended up as this evil thing that kills people. Pot is the opposite...."

In the Costly War on Drugs, Who's To Say What Is Right? (Jan. 21, 2007)
"It seems like you lack a certain enthusiasm for the war on drugs, I said. I do lack enthusiasm for the war on drugs, he said. I asked about legalization. He shrugged. 'Monday, Wednesday and Friday I think they should be legalized. Tuesdays and Thursdays I think they should be illegal. I don't like drugs. I strongly disapprove of them. The costs are great. But it's expensive to incarcerate somebody. The costs are enormous either way. I don't know what's right.'"

Democracy and Plan Colombia (Jan. 21, 2007)
Just what effects are the massive spraying in anti-cocaine and poppy efforts that are one of the main tenents of Plan Colombia, not to mention all the arms and training given to the Colombian military and governments to combat Colombian peasents...errr, I mean, dastardly narco-terrorists? No major advancement of democracy it appears.

Drug mafia, CIA blamed for sacking of Afghan governor (Jan. 21, 2007)
"As The Washington Post has plainly summarized, 'corruption and alliances formed by Washington and the Afghan government with anti-Taliban tribal chieftains, some of whom are believed to be deeply involved in the trade, [have] undercut the [counter-narcotics] effort.'"

PAST NEWS ARCHIVE

May All Such Disasters End So Well

By Preston Peet for DrugWar.com

published Oct. 8, 2009
Special thanks to V. Cleary, for still putting on her muse hat every so often.


Longboat Key, the city of Saraota across Sarasota Bay to the right, and the causeway connecting Longboat to Lido Key at center-right of the photo.

Flying into Sarasota, Florida from Paris, France in late November, 1984, on the final flight landing at the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport for the night, I had mixed feelings about being back in my hometown. Considering the size of this airport, I’ve never been able to resist an amused chuckle when thinking of the unabashed gall at naming this puny airport "international." That said, flights do arrive from all over the globe, so perhaps size really isn’t everything after all.

Stepping out of the terminal, I got my first big whiff of the breezescoming off Sarasota Bay, laden with the scent of salt water and tropical flowers, blowing across the still warm pavement of the parking lot. That tropical smell never failed to get me quickly thinking, "Why'd I ever leave this place," but know within days I'll have run into enough small brained, testosterorne crammed rednecks to remember the answer as to why I left this beautiful town clear as a bell.

snip-

Read complete story here

 

Are the JFK, RFK and MLK Hits Finally Solved?

By Preston Peet for High Times

Posted at DrugWar.com Sept. 3, 2009
Originally published in High Times Magazine May, 2009

“The Mafia is the current bad guy du jour,” said one of my editors when I told him what I was reading and reviewing for the magazine. Forty-five years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, facts surrounding the killing continue to be uncovered or declassified while new perpetrators are fingered, or re-accused.

In “Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, and the Murder of JFK (2005/2006, Counterpoint, CA), Lamar Waldron, with Thom Hartmann, point the finger first and foremost at New Orleans godfather Carlos Marcello, then Johnny Rosselli and Jimmy Hoffa, along with disgruntled anti-Castro Cubans and a smattering of CIA types as well, including the chief of the CIA’s Miami station JM-WAVE (then the largest, CIA-dosmestic operation, and therefore illegal for the most part), and rabid right-wing racists like Joseph Milteer (who just days prior to the Dallas hit described precisely how the hit would go down and the aftermath to the assassination, of cops picking up and pinning the heneous act upon some poor patsy, a low-level cog, easily painted as a left-wing, loner nutjob and subversive- in this case Lee Harvey Oswald).

snip-

Read Complete Reviews Here

 

“Rogue” CIA Covers Up Fault in Wrong-Plane Shootdown

By Preston Peet

Originally published in High Times Magazine, April, 2009
Posted at DrugWar.com August 24, 2009

The shootdown of a US missionary family and their pilot, after their plane was misidentified as a suspected narcotrafficker by US Central Intelligence Agency anti-drug forces over northeastern Peru on April 20, 2001, did not have to happen, and some in the CIA knew this and tried to cover up the fact from the surviving families, the Congress, and the US public.

snip-

Read Article Here-

 

To the Last Drop-
by Andrew Wice

A review by Preston Peet

Published in High Times Magazine, April, 2009
Posted at DrugWar.com August 23, 2009

With the world rapidly approaching a day when bloody, ruthless wars may be fought not over oil, or land, but rather, for water, what if it were US states that decided to go to war?

This is the premise of To the Last Drop (Bäuu Press, Boulder, CO, 2008), a “novel of water, oppression, and rebellion,” by New Mexican author Andrew Wice.

After New Mexico discovers a new, previously untapped water source, rabid-right winger and corporate magnate U.S. Armstrong orders a Texas well dug to steal the water. Push comes to shove, when a New Mexican pot smuggler plows his truck through a checkpoint set up by Texan militia.

snip-

Read Review Here

 

Editor's Introduction: The following was written as a blog by a very good friend of mine. This tale graphically illustrates a few of the reasons why so-called "straight" society can get so bent out of shape with those who use drugs, or in this case, hang out making a nuisance of themselves, even at times to the point of endangering those in their vicinity.

Then many other problems associated with prohibition became glaringly obvious- the fact that the only people selling drugs, illicit ones, are criminals. There's no quality control, all business is done in secret shadowy hideaways, and risks too health and liberty are everywhere.

Fucknuts Be Gone!
by DJNess

Originally published August 27, 2008
posted at DrugWar.com July 17, 2009

Yes it is hard to stay clean in NYC, as drugs and pushers are everywhere.

I have a personal problem. Maybe somebody has an idea.

This dude hangs out in front of my building everyday and cops both coke and dope, and who knows what else too, for an endless, if somewhat meager, stream of people. Fucknut is a tweeker himself, and he's blatant about pushing. I blame him in at least some small way for what happened to a close friend of mine, for my friend's horrific and extremely heartbreaking demise when he began speedballing again in the Fall of 2007.

snip-

Read Article Here-s

 
Daniel Pinchbeck- Modern Shamanism and Reality Bending

By Preston Peet
Posted DrugWar.com
February 5, 2007

Published in High Times Magazine
February, 2007

To many, Daniel Pinchbeck is one of this generation's closest thing to Terrance McKenna. Already well known and respected by many for traveling the world ingesting just about every psychedelic, mind-expanding substance known to man, [as detailed in his first book, Breaking Open the Head- a Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism] Pinchbeck is a leading visionary when it comes to the possibilities inherent in exploring our inner spaces, as well as an enthusiastic proponent of consciously thinking a positive world into reality.

Pinchbecks latest book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl , takes a good hard look at the state of the world today-the massive destruction humankind is doing to the planet, and the possibility that we may be reaching the point where, as the Mayan calendar predicts, a cosmic change or even the end of time- could rapidly be approaching. Whether this means an end to the human race or merely the end of our current destructive habits and outlooks, has yet to be determined.

I had the pleasure of meeting with Pinchbeck after an event at the Gershwin Hotel in Manhattan, where he read selected excerpts from his newest book, accompanied by a musical ensemble playing trippy, ethereal music. The reading was followed by an intense dialouge, during which he and the audience discussed shamanism, apocalyptic visions, the evolution of consciousness, and the end of the Mayan Calendar in the year 2012.

snip-

Read Complete Article Here

-----

 

Alcohol Rehabilitation

Posted DrugWar.com
November 5, 2006

[Editor's note-While the editor of DrugWar.com may not agree entirely with the 12-Step programs promoted by this drug and alcohol rehabilitation service, he strongly believes that any and all options for breaking free of addiction and the threat of prohibitionist repercussions should be available to anyone and everyone who finds themselves in the position of being addicted to some substance or other(s). Besides, different methods work for different people, and there is no one method that works the same for everyone. Therefore the editor of DrugWar.com gladly makes available these advertisements for Passages Malibu Alcohol and Drug Treatment Center.]

You can overcome a heroin addiction or prescription drugs with the help of a reliable staff.

Sadly, millions of people suffer from a drug or alcohol addiction. Overcoming an addiction is very challenging. In many cases, the substance is used as a means of numbing or attempting to forget mental pain. Even if a person is able to overcome an addiction, they may have a relapse when enduring a difficult time. Alcohol rehabilitation is purposed to help people fight alcoholism. There are many different types of programs available. Some incorporate the 12-step program, whereas other programs focus primarily on the psychological aspect, and attempt to discover the root cause of alcohol abuse. Furthermore, some alcohol rehabilitation programs are religion based, which use spirituality to help patients achieve a sober-free life.

Read Series of Informative and Helpful Paid Adverts Here

-----

 

Something In The Way-
A True Life Misadventure Tale of an Illicit Drug (Ab)user’s Life On and Off Streets Around the World

by Preston Peet



Front and back covers of
Something in the Way

September 14, 2006. Finally, the day has arrived!
My book Something in the Way is now "published."
I'm trying out this new fangled "internet" thing, taking full advantage of
the archaic revival that takes the power out of the hands of these nasty,
incredibly difficult to work with publishers, and puts the power of
publishing, and selling, directly into the writers' hands.
So without further babbling, here is the link to my new book Something in
the Way.

At $14.53 for a soft-cover hardcopy, and $6.25 electronic download, this is not an expensive book, but you will get one hell of a lot more than you pay for, I guarentee.

PLEASE, feel free to pass this link around, let all your friends know it's
finally available for their reading pleasure, Please.
Thanks all for your time and patience.

http://www.lulu.com/content/428724

Something In The Way- A True Life Misadventure Tale of an Illicit Drug
(Ab)user's Life On and Off Streets Around the World
by Preston Peet

Description

Hard and soft drugs, legal and non-legal, blood, violence, occasional peace, prostitution, pain, incessently dodging
the Law, an addict toils harder than most Nine to Fivers. Twenty-four hours a day, the need to stay well takes precedence. In this book you take the trip to its deepest, darkest, most graphic depths. Every word is true, every line lived completely. No punches are pulled in this tale, told exactly how it was for for one person strung out on the streets for a number of years.
So prepare for a wild, harrowing, biting and sometimes humourous
no-holds-barred ride into and out of the depths of hell. This is the story
of one young man who found himself living a life of misadventure, from
Atlanta to London, Amsterdam to New York City, on the streets, in squats, in stately manor homes, seedy and not-so-seedy hotels, sofa surfing, all the while playing his guitar, selling real and fake drugs, and whatever else he could do to collect the money for every fix, every single day.

http://www.lulu.com/content/428724
-----
"America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream.
The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe
the dream out of existence.
The dream is a spontaneous happening and
therefore dangerous to a control system set up by
the non-dreamers."
William S. Burroughs

-----

Psychedelic Horizons-

a Review
by Preston Peet

Originally published in High Times Magazine,
October 2006

posted DrugWar.com
August 25, 2006

Is it possible that extremely powerful, positive psychedelic drug experiences can boost our immune systems and strengthen our health? Can taking psychedelic drugs help increase human intelligence and creativity? Is the insistence by most modern science and those waging their War on Some Drugs that ideas and perceptions formed under the influences of psychedelics and other altered states of consciousness are false and hallucinatory only wrong, and has the reliance on only ideas and perceptions formed during so-called normal states of mind limited our learning about psychology, health, and the vast potential of human thought?

snip-

Read Review Here

-----

 
The Tripping Link-
Graham Hancock and the Origin of Man

By Preston Peet

Originally Published in High Times Magazine, September, 2006
Posted at DrugWar.com August 16, 2006


photo by Santha Faiia

"One very plausible, and for me very persuasive, explanation, in the school of Huxley, James and Hoffman," writes controversial, internationally best selling author Graham Hancock in his new book, Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind (Century, 2005, The Disinformation Company, 2006), "is that there do indeed exist 'separate, freestanding realities'-or 'parallel dimensions' of the kind quantum physics predicts-that vibrate at a different frequency to our own and thus are invisible to us except when we approach them in altered states of consciousness."

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 
High Times Magazine's Freedom Fighter for July, 2006

Paul Wright

By Preston Peet
(Originally published in High Times Magazine,
July, 2006 issue, pg. 20)

posted DrugWar.com June 12, 2006


PLN Founder and Editor
Paul Wright

When he entered the Washington State penal system in 1987, after receiving a 304-month sentence for shooting a drug dealer during a robbery (the jury rejected his claim of self-defense), Prison Legal News founder and editor Paul Wright immediately recognized a dire need for a publication by and for prisoners, and despite having no previous journalism schooling or experience, he set out to fill the void. The first hand-typed, photocopied, 10-page issue of PLN was published in Wright and Ed Mead, cooperating from two different prisons, in May 1990. The first three issues were banned in all Washington prisons, the first 18 in all Texas prisons. Still, the monthly magazine quickly grew to 48 pages, and each new issue now enters prisons and jails in all fifty states, despite frequent censorship troubles.

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

Robbing the Illegal Drug Store

By Preston Peet
For DrugWar.com

Posted May 2, 2006

Based on what might be a true story, heard through the grapevine while researching War on Some Drugs and Users news and events.


photo by John@
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cumisky/

snip-

Frank was riding high, his drug delivery business going great guns, so he was feeling cocky and indestructible, impervious to harm. Riding his bicycle all over Manhattan six nights a week, delivering a hugely diverse array of illegal narcotics and herbal substances to a wide assortment of customers without a hitch his entire career, it simply didn't seem feasible to him that he could be robbed or worse. As most people believe when hearing or thinking about robberies and disasters, he feels they only happen to other people.

snip-

Read Complete Article Here

-----

 
Cocaine, Kate and the media: Just who is the bad influence?

By Craig Morris
for DrugWar.com

posted at DrugWar.com
March 7, 2006


Apothecary Jar c. 1880.
Image from the Chicago Historical Society
(Archived at Erowid.org)

Once again, society is in the grip of another media led, drug-related moral panic. This time (in the UK specifically) the drug in question is cocaine. However, similar waves of media hysteria can be seen historically around drugs and young people-from reefer madness myths around cannabis in the 1930s in the US to acid house/rave and ecstasy in the late 1980s in the UK. The truth is that especially in the tabloid press, social anxiety sells and drug-related stories are among the best sellers.

Whilst some journalists and newspapers are better than others in terms of factuality and understanding drug issues, most will have problems simply because they do not make recourse to expert knowledge on the subject (Coomber, Morris and Dunn, 2000). Much of what they think is true about drugs and drug users is often nonsense. Journalists are trained in finding and producing stories, they are not experts in the field of substance use. Entertaining stories they may often be, but factual insight may not often be on top of the list of priorities. Much of the media (especially in the tabloid press market) is far more interested in a good story (i.e. one that will generate sales) than a factual/educational one.

Whilst there has been an undercurrent of concern in the British media about growing cocaine use by young people for a few years now, the current wave of cocaine media coverage seems to have begun with a front cover photo story of the fashion supermodel Kate Moss and her alleged cocaine use in The Daily Mirror on September 15th, 2005. Whether or not Kate Moss did or even still does use cocaine is not the focus of this article. I am more interested in the consequences of the media coverage and social anxieties which seem to coalesce around the idea that Moss is a role-model for some young people.

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 

Something in the Way-
an excerpt

Chapter 29-

The Entheogenic Bed and Breakfast Detox-
An Amsterdam Redux

by Preston Peet
all photos by Preston Peet
unless otherwise noted

posted at DrugWar.com
Feb. 20, 2006


photographer unknown

"Hey Preston, you can always come here and detox at my home in the Netherlands if you'd like."

The first time I saw this invite from Sara Glatt in my email box, it was way back in 2000 when I was kicking methadone. I had heard of the African root iboga, which is the mainstay of Sara's detox treatment technique, but I'd not been interested at all in leaving the safety and security of my home, as I was already in the midst of kicking when she wrote. I figured at that time that I was already in withdrawals and that it was impossible that there would be any way to entirely eradicate methadone withdrawals, not even with iboga, the whole plant extract, which contains all the plant's naturally occuring chemicals in addition to the ibogaine molecule, that Sara uses to help her guests detox.

Since that first invite, I'd had the opportunity on a number of occasions to take ibogaine hydrochloride, the active molecule in iboga, in my own apartment in NYC's Lower East Side. While very impressed with its effectiveness in making any withdrawals from the painkillers I was subsequently having problems with and trying to repeatedly kick pretty much dissipate, and even though I felt rejuvenated and strong after each experience taking ibogaine, I would still be sitting in my same situation, surrounded by the very same stresses and worries and lack of space. I wasn't giving myself any break whatsoever after such a tumultuous experience as ibogaine is, not to mention my hard-core love of opiate painkillers, and the resulting tolerance and repeated addiction to the same. Dealing with the same situation and tempations over and over, without giving myself any chance to gain a new perspective or to gain any strength at all, I'd revert to the drug abusing behavior I've been troubled with for years.

snip-

Read Complete Article Here

-----

 

IBOGAINE –
Rite of Passage

by Ben De Loenen
(Director and Producer)

posted at DrugWar.com
July 26, 2005

In September the documentary about the use of Ibogaine for the treatment of addiction, "IBOGAINE-Rite of Passage" premiered at the Dutch Film Festival in Utrecht, The Netherlands.




Ben De Loenen, of the Dutch film production company LunArt Productions,
produced and directed this film in co-production with Triomf Productions. Since then the film has been showcased at several film festivals and conferences, and in January of 2006 it will play at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam.

snip-

Read Complete Article Here

-----

 
Taking the Left Hand Path…
Again

By
Preston Peet

posted at DrugWar.com
April 19, 2005
(Remember Waco!)

"Madness is not enlightenment, but the search for enlightenment is often mistaken for madness"- Richard Davenport-Hines, The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics

"Ugh, hey man," I gasp into the cell phone between the pounding throbbing of my head and the retching of my guts, "you have to come over right now, right away. I am so sick right now, we cannot wait any longer. Come right now." I hang up the cell phone and lean back over the side of the bed, throwing up yet more dinner from the night before into the small green bucket V has put next to the bed. She's not doing a good job at even pretending to be very sympathetic either. "I told you you shouldn't have done that last one," she points out as I heave miserably into the bucket, my long hair dragging through the sick.

The Reason and Rhyme This Time

The night before was Wednesday, April 13, 2005. V and I had gone out with her mom to eat at Red Bamboo, my favorite restaurant in NYC, a vegan place that makes the best food ever. Afterwards, we'd gone to Madison Square Garden to see Duran Duran play an excellent show, taking all three of us right back to 1982, where I for one hoped to be leaving a lot of very heavy luggage behind.

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 
Marijuana Users In Treatment: Unraveling the Federal Spin

By Doug McVay
Common Sense for Drug Policy

For DrugWar.com
March 9, 2005

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in March 2005 released a report on the number of marijuana users referred to drug treatment from 1992 through 2002. According to SAMHSA, "Admission rates for primary marijuana increased nationally by 162 percent between 1992 and 2002." SAMHSA estimated that "[T]he number of marijuana admissions per year more than tripled in this time period. In the same period, the proportion of marijuana admissions increased from 6 percent of all admissions to 15 percent of all admissions."

Some officials have spun these numbers to try and show that marijuana is a serious drug threat. Unraveling their spin reveals the less-than-earth-shattering reality behind the figures.

snip-

Read Report Here

-----

 
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson-
Another Inspiration Gone

A commentary by Preston Peet

Posted at DrugWar.com
Feb. 21, 2005

"I'd hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." -
Dr. Hunter Stockton Thompson- born July 18, 1937; died Feb. 20, 2005


When eighteen years old, embodying the life of a bohemian druggie in the streets of Paris, I was living in the Hotel de' Nesle, a cheap hotel overrun with hippies, heads and freaks in the center of the city, selling (and using) lots and lots of LSD and hashish to supplement my meager cash flow. A voracious reader, I would scour the hotel for books in English that other travelers may have finished reading or have forgotten when they'd continued on their roads. It was like this I found a tattered copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by the man who would become my driving inspiration, the main, number one source for my desire to pick up a pen and write and publish, Dr. Hunter Stockton Thompson.

snip-

Read Commentary Here

-----

 

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was death, and hell followed with him".
Revelation 6:7

The Atrocities of a Pale Rider-
John D. Negroponte

by
Celerino Castillo 3rd

posted at DrugWar.com
Feb. 17, 2005


John Dimitri Negroponte


The above biblical quotation is the only way I can describe John Dimitri Negroponte because of the atrocities he's previously committed around the world.

From 1971 to 1973, Negroponte was the officer-in charge for Vietnam at the National Security Council under Henry Kissinger. During that period, former DEA Michael Levine was conducting undercover operations in Saigon, Thailand, and Cambodia where our government was smuggling heroin into the U.S. Our government was utilizing caskets and body bags of those "Killed In Action" to smuggled the heroin.

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 

Racial Disparity in Drug Law Convictions

by Terry Gorski

posted DrugWar.com
Dec. 27, 2004

On October 20, 2004 a groundbreaking coalition of black professional
organizations came together to form the National African American Drug Policy Coalition (NAADPC). The NAADPC urgently seeks alternatives to misguided drug policies that have led to mass incarceration.

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 

Opening Pandora's Box:
Anti-Drug Vaccines Gather Momentum

by Cletus Nelson

for DrugWar.com
Nov. 16, 2004

Back in 2002, DrugWar.com addressed a disturbing new strategy in the war on drugs: The development of anti-drug "vaccines" capable of permanently blunting the effects of mind-altering substances. The article ("Headshrinking the American Addict"), discussed how the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in partnership with various corporate and public entities was spending millions developing this supposed "cure" for the "disease" of addiction. The sheer scope of this neuro-political endeavor, which sounds like something out of a futuristic science fiction thriller, generated more than a few incredulous responses from skeptical readers. Yet some two years later, this far flung experiment in social control is gaining traction among prohibitionists.

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 
We don't need no stinkin' dope votes

By Jules Siegel

for DrugWar.com
October 18, 2004
(hyperlinks added by
DrugWar.com Editor)


To Vote or Pot to Vote for Kerry, that is a question

Doper support will be the kiss of death for Democratic Senator and Presidential candidate John Kerry, subscribers sneered on massively liberal dailykos.com when I posted the news that voters were being registered at the Washington State Hempfest. Do these people think that drug users don't vote? That they have no influence? That they still dress in bell bottoms and wear flowers in their hair?

The right wing is way ahead on this. Libertarians are almost uniformly in favor of immediate legalization. Even hard core conservatives are anti-drugwar. On far right FreeRepublic.com, a drugwar abuse item typically pulls about 75% outright antidrugwar comments. The culturally tolerant fiscal conservative could be Kerry's key swing voter.

snip-

Read Editorial Here

-----

Recovery in Russia:
Inside a Detox Gulag

by Cletus Nelson

posted at DrugWar.com
Oct. 9, 2004
originally published at
Points of Departure

Victoria Malakhova could care less whether you "work your steps," find your inner-child, or connect with some unnamed "higher power." Instead, the iron-fisted director of the most brutal drug treatment center in Russia is interested in only one thing: results.

"Isolation, bread and water, that's all one needs to deal with withdrawal," she informs a western journalist.

Welcome to City Without Drugs (CWD) and the sadistic world of Recovery---Russian style.

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 
NORML Canada Press Release

Teen Marijuana Use Up-- Thanks to the Prohibition of Marijuana

posted DrugWar.com
Oct. 7, 2004


White Shark

OTTAWA, Oct. 6 /SEDCWire/-- The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in Canada (NORML Canada) is concerned that more Canadian teens are using cannabis as opposed to alcohol. This comes after reports of a study carried out by Queen's University in partnership with Health Canada, as reported
today by Sarah Schmidt of the CanWest News Service.

snip-

Read Notice Here

-----

 

NYC's Guerilla Ibogaine Treatments- a brief discussion

by Preston Peet
for DrugWar.com

posted at DrugWar.com
August 26, 2004

images taken from Meyaya, at iboga.org


Gathering ibogaine at the source in Africa

On a gorgeous sunny afternoon in Manhattan's Lower East Side, between my own first and second sessions on ibogaine, an African root that has been reported useful in the kicking of a variety of substance addictions and self-abuse patterns in the West by many researchers and private individuals, I carried out the following interview. I met in Tompkins Square Park with FM, who for the month of August was leading a band of guerilla ibogaine treatment facilitators, treating an assortment of people with ibogaine for myriad reasons.

Having been one of the lucky few who made contact with this group and was initiated and treated with ibogaine HCL, I was interested in hearing more about the man who made this experience possible for me and many other New York City addicts.

snip-

Read interview Here

-----

 
Kicking Drugs with Drugs-
Taking the Left Hand Path

By Preston Peet

For DrugWar.com
Posted August 12, 2004


Ibogaine

"Watch for communications soon from another friend of ours," the Voice said, almost giggling with glee. "He's gonna have a number for you to call, to get in touch with some folk doing underground, guerilla ibogaine treatments in NYC, this coming August."

Immediately I'm feeling all sorts of conflicting emotions. Because here it is, no more talking about wanting to do it, or wondering on this or that email list what the effects are and if it really, really does work to interrupt or cure or help people get over a wide variety of addictions. If it is here in my own city and I can get it at much cheaper rates than were I to fly to some foreign country where it's either legal or simply not regulated at all yet, how in the hell am I, a seasoned, proud proponent of cognitive liberty and the free taking of powerful mind expanding drugs, a veritable Drug Expert, Author and psychonaut, going to live it down if I chicken out and say, "oh, no thank you"?

snip-

Read Complete Article Here

-----

 
How to Drink Absinthe

By Dave Walsh
Blather.net

posted at DrugWar.com
July 14, 2004

all images from Aberration of Society

"Got tight last night on absinthe and did knife tricks. Great success shooting the knife into the piano. The woodworms are so bad and eat hell out of all furniture that you can always claim the woodworms did it." - Ernest Hemingway

So much has been written about absinthe, yet it's so poorly understood. Absinthe literature is full of yarns of ear loss, family murders and ruined livers. Books and museums are dedicated to absinthe spoons and glasses. There are reviews of the various flavorings and essential qualities, and comparisons with other drugs and liquors. We're told about the famous souls who drank Absinthe - Van Gogh, Rimbaud, Wilde, Picasso, and others. Coffee table absinthe books are piled with prints of absinthe advertisements and admonishments, and paintings by the artists who drank it, showing languid subjects with thousand-yard states. Today's magazines advertise absinthe dealers, fake absinthe and home made recipes. Websites chatter on about illegality and availability.

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 

No Patient is Safe- the War on Pain Relief

By Preston Peet

posted at DrugWar.com
June 24, 2004


US Drug Czar John Walters attacks pain patients and their doctors

"I can't up your prescription, because I don't want to get flagged by the DEA," said a New York City doctor to a chronic pain patient, who described the difficultly she's had obtaining adequate pain medication. "My doctor has told me the DEA can stop by at any time to check on individual patients and their prescription," said the pain patient, who specifically requested anonymity, "so he is hesitant to give me the amounts I need to really get on top of my pain. This can often leave me in serious pain with no way out other than to either grin and bear it or go buy illegal street drugs. This is not an option for me personally due to all the hassles of not knowing what's been cut into the street drugs, or worse, the possibility of running into some overeager anti-drug squad fanatics, but I know plenty of people who suffer chronic pain problems who do not share my aversion to these risks."

snip-

Read Article and Access Links Here

-----

 

CONTRA-INTELLIGENCE
ON OLIVER L. NORTH

By Celerino "Cele" Castillo, 3rd
Former Federal Drug Agent and Author of:
Powderburns- Cocaine, Contras & the Drug War

posted at DrugWar.com
May 12, 2004

...

For the past ten years, I've been invited to lecture in different parts of this country in regards to the criminal activities of Oliver North. This will be the second time that I know of that the Salvation Army has invited Oliver North to be their key speaker for another Republican fundraiser. During the McAllen fundraiser, the alleged reason for the invitation was that the Salvation Army captain claimed that North has saved his father life in Vietnam. I don't know what the reason is this time around, but I do know that he is once again being paid $25,000 for his lecture.

At the height of the Contra war, I was stationed in Central America for 5 years as the lead DEA agent in El Salvador. It was there that I came face to face with the contradictions of my assignments. I started to record intelligence on how known drug traffickers, with multiple DEA files, were utilizing hangars 4 and 5 at Illopango airbase in El Salvador, to transport monies and drugs. Those hangars were owned and operated by the CIA and NSC. The Contra supply operations utilized the most readily available capabilities: drug-smugglers, who had the planes and pilots to conduct clandestine flights from South and Central America to all parts of the United States. "Guns down, drugs back," was the formula.

snip-

Read Report Here

-----

 
It's a Protest, Not a Pot-Fest-
MMM 2004

By Preston Peet-
for DrugWar.com

May 2, 2004


Ed "NJWeedman" Forchion and
DrugWar.com editor Preston Peet

May 1 was a beautiful Spring day, perfect to spend outside in Battery Park at the lower end of Manhattan in New York City, where an estimated one to three thousand people attended the 2004 Million Marijuana March and rally in support of medical marijuana and Drug War reforms.

snip-

Read Report Here

-----

 

Economists on Illegal Drugs

by Mark Thornton

Originally published April 24, 2004
Posted at DrugWar.com April 30, 2004, with permission of author


Author Mark Thornton

Economists are among the noteworthy proponents of the "legalization" of narcotic drugs, cocaine and marijuana. However, public proclamations have been few in number, short on details, and muted by recommendations such as Gary Becker from the University of Chicago who advocates legalization combined with a heavy "sin" tax to discourage use.

snip-

Read article Here

----
The Assault on Dr. Phillip Leveque: Part II

An editorial by
Jack Dalton

posted at
DrugWar.com
April 6, 2004

We constantly hear from those in Washington, D.C. that this is a country guided by the Rule of Law. We hear a lot of carping from the same people, John Ashcroft, John Walters, Karen Tandy, Rep Mark Souder (R-In) about the rule of law and states rights. At the same time, when states pass state laws that go against what they believe they opt to follow their ideology and in the process trample all over state laws…and sick people in the process.

snip-

Read Editorial Here

-----

 
Blair Talks Turkey

By Daniel Forbes

for DrugWar.com
posted March 16, 2004

By the way, the sex for drugs was with men. Or - saying he was revealing details he'd told no one else - so Jayson Blair told me Friday night, the two of us alone on a Harlem sidewalk following his first public reading. The drugs were primarily cocaine, sometimes crack and "a little heroin" to come down on. But cocaine was his decided favorite. Blair said he was "born a decade too late" - that is, after coke's peak. Regarding the sex-for-drugs, I asked only the gender involved and whether any New York Times staffers participated. With yet another of his grating, ingratiating giggles, Blair said no about any Timesmen, "but that would've made a good story, hunh?"

He told me his attitude about sex - and indeed perhaps sex itself - was "really sordid" and "twisted" and "fucked up." He declared himself rife with inhibitions and said there were sexual issues "I need to sort out." He added, "Drugs are a way to make myself comfortable with sex."

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 

What Good Can a Drug Czar Do?

by Doug McVay

for DrugWar.com
posted March 13, 2004


Will Czar Walters finally do some good?

Sometimes, getting a federal official to take a good stand and get involved in a policy debate is simple. It can be about being at the right place, at the right time, to ask the right question.

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 

AMERICAN JESUS
How the Son of God Became a National Icon

By Stephen Prothero
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
343 pages

Reviewed by
Jules Siegel

posted at DrugWar.com
Feb. 26, 2004

snip-

He writes about the Jesus freak movement, "As heroin replaced pot as the drug of choice and overdoses multiplied, many came to associate drugs with captivity rather than freedom." (127) Few in the Bay Area will agree that heroin ever replaced pot as the drug of choice. Heroin has never been an important drug numerically. In the Federal 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 75 percent of illicit drug users admitted using marijuana, compared with 0.1 percent for heroin.

snip-

Read Review Here

-----
LIGHTNING BOLT MEDIA-
Political News & Views 2004

BUSH'S GOP
CHALLENGER DETAINED BY U.S. SECRET
SERVICE-

DEMANDS CONGRESSIONAL INQUIRY INTO 'CONSPIRACY OF
HARASSMENT'

posted at DrugWar.com
Feb. 14, 2004


John Buchanan

WASHINGTON, DC - John Buchanan, the Miami Beach journalist who ran as "the truth candidate" against President George W. Bush in the January 27 New Hampshire GOP primary, has issued a formal demand for a Congressional inquiry into his February 4 detention by the U.S. Secret Service at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

The incident is now being investigated by Republican staffers of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, with whom Buchanan met February
5.

Buchanan, 53, charges in a detailed written presentation to the Judiciary Committee that his two hours of questioning at the airport, as he was en route to speak at The National Press Club last Wednesday evening, were the culmination of a still-unexplained series of false police reports filed against Buchanan between October 19, 2003 and last week as part of what Buchanan claims is "an ongoing program of harassment and political dirty tricks."

snip-

Read Complete Report Here

-----

 

From VoteHemp.org

Press Release
February 2, 2004
CONTACT: Adam Eidinger

Vote Hemp Releases Voter Guide on Presidential Candidates

Kucinich Scores A+ Rating;

Edwards Undecided but Supports Research

Clark, Kerry Not Men of Their Word: Did Not Answer Survey Despite Promise

snip-

Read Release Here

-----

 

Taking Back Ground Zero & Becoming the Media –

a strategy to empower the populace.

by Michael Kane

posted at DrugWar.com
January 19th, 2004

The name of the game is resilience.

Every Saturday for three weeks now, the New York Truth Movement has been in front of Ground Zero with multiple signs and literature to disseminate to the public. Next week, January 24th, 2004, will mark our fourth week of many more to come. NY Truth activists are showing support and coming onto the streets in small, but consistent and growing numbers. Citizens are telling us what they know about 9-11, including many who were there when the tragedy struck. At times, verbal confrontations break out which don’t even involve us, but rather involve passing citizens who have opposing viewpoints.

I love democracy! It can get messy, but no one said it was easy.

snip-

Read Report and find Contact information Here

-----

 

WHAT IS IT ABOUT DEAD THAT YOU DON¹T UNDERSTAND?

by Richard Cowan
reprinted at DrugWar.com with permission
Dec. 17, 2003


The Kubby Family, September, 2003

On Monday we finally learned that the Refugee Protection Division denied the Kubbys the protection of Canada.

snip-

Read Report Here

-----

 
Earth Day Founder
Sees Renewed Hope

by John Buchanan
The New Hampshire Gazette

Posted DrugWar.com
November 25, 2003


John McConnell


DENVER - When 88-year-old John McConnell was a boy in Iowa, his mother used to sing songs to him about peace and love. He never forgot the spirit of those songs, and later in life he went on to meet and form friendships with A-bomb genius Edward Teller, sociologist Margaret Mead, journalist Edward R. Murrow and former UN Secretary General U Thant, who later dubbed him one of "the great peacemakers" of the 20th century.

snip-

Read Complete Article Here

-----

 

Reading to End the War on Some Drugs and Users

Poetry Reading to Benefit NORML

Features Sam Abrams, Bob Holman, Chi Chi Valenti and Preston Peet

On November 21, 2003, in NYC, The Slipper Room will host a poetry reading from 8-10pm to benefit NORML. A suggested donation of $10 will be charged at the door.

Please click here for more information

-----

 

There's No Stamping Out This Magick
No matter how hard they try

By Preston Peet
For the November issue
of the New York Waste

posted at DrugWar.com
October 22, 2003


Ketamine molecule

...Kelly is thinking along the same lines though, knowing there isn't any more coke. She makes a suggestion that Thomas will always remember.

"Ever done Ketamine?" She asks through her coke-clenched teeth.

"Nope, never."

Kelly climbs off the bed and goes to her closet. Reaching up onto the shelf, she pulls out a small white box with printing on it.

"I got this yesterday from a friend. It's straight from the vet's office."

snip-

Read Story Here

-----

 
You Call This Reform?
Canada Backtracks and Babysteps on Marijuana

By Preston Peet
for DrugWar.com

posted October 18, 2003


Will Canadian Patients and even recreational users Ever Get This Medicine sans hassle?

Despite US Drug Czar John Walters' recent assertions that Canada is "the one place in the hemisphere where things are going the wrong (way) rapidly," Canada is moving towards stricter marijuana policies. After a summer of defacto legalized marijuana use lead to no apparent increase in anarchy, violence or crime on Canadian streets, the Ontario Appeals Court effectively recriminalized recreational use on October 7, 2003, while ordering that the Canadian government insure patients can more easily obtain their medicinal marijuana by allowing businesses and individuals to grow their own for medical use. At the same time, Canada's proposed "decrim" bill seeks to further tighten rather than relax Canada's pot laws.

snip-

Read Complete Article Here

-----

 

Thank You Jeb and Jim

by Stephen Heath

posted DrugWar.com
October 8, 2003


A happy Florida Governor Jeb Bush

Elected officials do jobs that are often thankless. Well we're here to thank Governor Jeb Bush and his drug czar James McDonough for their drug policies, now in effect for almost five years.

snip-

Read Editoral Here

-----

 

Can we spare a dime for our troops?

by Tim Castleman

posted DrugWar.com
October 3, 2003


US trooper guards a burning Iraqi oil well-
photo Webshots Community

$87 billion dollars is needed to fund the next 15 months of the US occupation in Iraq. The illusion that we are there to "liberate" the people has faded, and with no WMD found after months of searching there is very little doubt of the truth now. We invaded that country to secure "vital American interests", to be more precise: OIL.

snip-

Read Editorial Here

-----

 

 

Ecstasy and Amphetamines - Global Survey 2003

United Nations Drug Report "Disappointing" Say Critics

Press Release from the
Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics

posted at DrugWar.com
September 26, 2003

Yesterday (September 23, 2003) the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime released its report Ecstasy and Amphetamines - Global Survey 2003. The report estimates that worldwide 7.7 million people used the drug ecstasy from 2000-2001...

...The report was released just weeks after scientists at Johns Hopkins University retracted their research findings that suggested that a single evening's use of ecstasy could cause permanent brain damage and Parkinson's disease. The scientists admitted that they utilized the wrong drug in their studies.

The UN Report makes no mention of the retraction of these very controversial findings.

snip-

Read Release Here

-----

 

Beginning of the End of Democracy in America?

by Bill Douglas

posted at DrugWar.com
September 23, 2003


What does this flag stand for again?

A man in some country was recently taken, handcuffed, down into a subterranean interrogation room in the bowels of a police station and asked by a police investigator, "when I look into your writings will I find anything subversive?"

This sounds like something one might have heard coming out of the former Soviet Union. However, it wasn't. The country was America, the man was me, and the interrogation room was in the basement of the massive and imposing Kansas City Jail on 12th street (Tuesday, Sept 16th, 2003). (I'm a writer, who's contributed to many publications worldwide, including the Kansas City Star, and the Kansas City Business Journal). This event emblazoned into my mind that something has drastically changed in my America . . . our America.

snip-

Read Report Here

-----

 

911 Skeptics and Peace Movement –
Building Bridges Across the World
911 Skeptics Connect the Dots

Sept. 12, 2003
By Michael Kane
posted at DrugWar.com Sept. 17, 2003


World Trade Center, September 11, 2001
photo- Preston Peet

1,000 people attend 911 film exhibit in NYC
Cynthia McKinney throws hat into 2004 election(?)
Amy Goodman shows solidarity with 911 Skeptics
1,000 attend Aftermath screening in Toronto
911 Skeptics show solidarity across the world!

A quantum leap took place this September 11th at the Riverside Church in Harlem where a film exhibit and speaking panel kicked off a weekend long event entitled “Reframing 9-11”, sponsored by WBAI 99.5 fm, 911 Citizenswatch, the WBAI program Ain’t That Good News. I helped organize the event.

Close to one thousand people came to hear an all star speaking panel that included Cynthia McKinney, Mike Ruppert, Ray McGovern, John Judge, and Dr. Faiz Khan. Also joining the event was David MacMichael and Danny Schechter. The event questioned the official story of what happened on September 11th, 2001, a story that has now been proven to be full of lies and distortions.

snip-

Read Report Here

-----

 
Enlightenment in Baltimore

by Preston Peet
for DrugWar.com

posted August 29, 2003


Shawn Heller, Alex Grey, Valerie Vande Panne-
photo- Carolyn Lunman

"Madness is not enlightenment, but the search for enlightenment can often be mistaken for madness." With this quote I opened my presentation to the small audience at the American Visionary Art Museum....

...Three floors high, the museum has for the past 11 months been running the "High on Life" exhibition (closing its doors Sept. 1, 2003), with well over a hundred artists' work on display, all portraying some facet of drugs illegal and legal. The Washington Post reported (08/23/03) that "Most of the artists are self-taught; they are addicts, unapologetic users or victims. It is an exhibition about altered states, and the things we use to take us there -- coffee, cigarettes, cocaine, LSD. It is hellish and it is heavenish. It is about journeys and trips. And it is filled with wonder."

snip-

Read Story Here

-----

 

Conscience Will Not Permit

by David Borden

David Borden, Executive Director of DRCNet,
Refuses Jury Duty Summons

posted at DrugWar.com with permission
August 28, 2003
Originally published at
StoptheDrugWar.org


David Borden-
Executive Director Drug Reform Coordination Network

...Jurors in the United States cannot therefore confidently rely on the information we are provided for deciding criminal cases. We cannot know if we have been told the whole truth of a case ­ as in the trials of Ed Rosenthal and Bryan Epis, whom California jurors convicted without knowing they were medical marijuana providers. We cannot trust the testimony of witnesses for the state to be truthful and balanced; for example, Andrew Chambers, a "super-snitch" used by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for numerous prosecutions, even after a court found him to be a repeat perjurer. We are not permitted knowledge of the possible consequences a defendant may face if we vote to convict ­ and in a society that hands out decades-long punishments as a routine matter, and which fails to provide adequate safety or medical care to our incarcerated, we cannot have faith that a judge will be able, even if willing, to pronounce a sentence that is just. We are instructed to decide verdicts based solely on facts, showing no consideration to larger moral principles, with those daring to inform potential jurors of their power to do otherwise themselves subjected to criminalization to an increasing degree. And we subsidize the injustices by providing our time for mere travel cost as members of the jury pool, and for less than a living wage while serving as jurors on cases.

snip-

Read Entire Open Letter Here

-----

 

Saying Yes

A Review of Jacob Sullum's new book
"Saying Yes: In defense of drug use"


"Saying Yes" by Jacob Sullum

Reviewed by Richard Glen Boire

posted at DrugWar.com
August 26, 2003

It's rare that I read books about drug policy. After just a little exposure to the genre, one finds, over and over again, the same dates, the same key people, the same arguments from the government and the same arguments from the policy reform camp. There is the grand narrative told by the government ("drugs are bad"), and there is the counter-narrative told by the reformers ("drug prohibition is worse"). It sometimes reminds me of how in the late 1970s I'd sometimes adjust our family's Pong game so that the paddles would continually reflect the pong ball back and forth, leave for school and return to find the ball had remained in motional equipoise.

Yet when I heard that Jacob Sullum was working on a book about drugs and drug policy, my expectations for something new were lifted. As a senior editor for Reason Magazine, a publication devoted to intelligent discussions over how to best allocate power between the government and the individual, Sullum had penned a number of fairly unorthodox essays about drugs. I was looking forward to getting more of his thoughts on a topic that while always in motion, rarely seems to advance.

snip-

Read Review Here

-----

 
The Right to Medical Marijuana-
Get it Straight

Jay R. Cavanaugh, PhD

posted at DrugWar.com
August 18, 2003


The Bush Administration has weighed in on the battle over whether or not State approved medical marijuana programs should continue to help the chronically ill and dying. Specifically, the Federal Government wants to go after physicians who merely "recommend" cannabis to a patient. The Justice Department is appealing a Ninth Circuit Court ruling that enjoined the DEA from acting against those physicians who wish to approve cannabis.

snip-

Read Editorial Here

------

 

Voting and Prison Slavery

by Ray LaGard

posted at DrugWar.com
August 2, 2003


"Vote" by Anthony Papa
(http://www.15yearstolife.com)

...I noticed, on a daily basis, large numbers of men, women, and children being herded into the DC jail like cattle; and smaller numbers going out. In and out, each day. So, we did a study on the Annual Cumulative Incarcerated Population of the United States counting (and estimating when specific data was not available) daily, weekly, monthly totals of humans coming and going. This cumulative count of human property over a one year time period greatly increased the total annual population of people who were or had been incarcerated for any time period during that year, even if overnight. The recent study by the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics shows the static population, not the cumulative total count. And, the reality is that the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics knows the vast difference between static and cumulative prisoner/inmate populations. I told them about this cumulative count study, used several of their large data manuals, and -- surprisingly to me -- they already knew.

The question is, What are they trying to hide? How would the general public respond if they knew the static incarcerated population had risen from 1.4 million to 2.1 million in one year? Or, how would the general public respond if they knew the cumulative population grew from 10 million citizens to 15 million in one year -- those who go into incarceration and stay, or into incarceration and are released?

snip-

Read Editorial Here

-----

 
Senator Joseph McCarthy:
Unrepentent Junkie?

By Stephen Young

posted at DrugWar.com
July 21, 2003
(originally published at
DrugSense Weekly)


Harry J. Anslinger (left)- Sen. Joseph McCarthy's illegal connection for morphine?

Whether you love or hate 1950s communist hunter Joe McCarthy, does it matter if he was an opiate addict?

McCarthy's life and legacy are back in the spotlight thanks to a new book by hyperconservative commentator and author Ann Coulter. The book, "Treason," not only defends McCarthy, but raises him as a hero.

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 

US Funded Death Squads

Dear Friends:

We are coming to the conclusion that it is the DEA behind the racist policies of the Thai death squads. We urgently ask that you send this picture to your congress person or parliamentarian and demand a stop to US funded Death Squads in Thailand. The DEA just formed a special Thai DEA unit for speeding up intel to Thais. You can see what the intel of these un-elected Americans is doing. I knew this man for two years, he survived a village forced relocation. He was executed without a trial of his peers.

Matthew McDaniel
Akha Weekly Journal

See photo here
(Editor's note- this photo is graphic evidence of the brutality of those the US government supports with US tax dollars because they profess anti-drug philosophy and practice anti-drug policies.)

-----

 

Better Justice Through Chemistry

The Supreme Court Spared One Defendant Forcible Drugging- but Does the New Standard Really Protect Our Rights?

By Heidi Lypps

July 16, 2003


No needle this time, rules the Supreme Court

The June 16 Supreme Court decision in the celebrated forced drugging case of Dr. Charles Sell set off a mix of jubilation, confusion, and frustration among both advocates and opponents of involuntary medication. The 6-3 decision overturned two previous rulings allowing Sell's forcible drugging to stand trial for 63 counts of fraud. Sell's case differs from previous forcible medication cases, such as February's Eighth Circuit court decision allowing the forcible drugging of murderer Charles Singleton to make him sane for execution. A dissenting judge called that decision a "barbarity." Sell, on the other hand, is non-dangerous and accused of nonviolent crimes.

snip-

Read Editorial Here

-----

 
Yet Another 'Oops, Wrong House' Drug Raid

by Preston Peet-
for DrugWar.com

July 1, 2003


Ninja Narcs ready to go in
photographer unknown

At dawn in your own apartment, you lay in bed petting your two cats as you ponder what you'll make for breakfast. Suddenly the door explodes into the apartment, followed closely by a stun grenade that catches your carpet on fire, then a herd of yelling, armored local and federal agents burst in waving guns, ordering you not to move and to lie on the floor. At 68 years of age, now forced to use a walker to make your way around your neighborhood, you struggle to comply hoping all the while that none of these armed, screaming home invaders shoots and kills you for not moving fast enough. You think this can't be happening as they cuff your hands behind your back as you lie there on the floor, not in the USA, you haven't done anything illegal, there must be some mistake. You are right- the police end up admitting after a fruitless search of your apartment that it's an "oops, wrong address" drug raid.

snip-

Read Story and access numerous links here

-------

 
Skating For Justice

by Preston Peet-
for DrugWar.com

July 1, 2003


The SSDP activists
photo- Charles Kibicho

Proving that drug law reformers are not suffering from amotivational syndrome, 10 members of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy skated all or most of the 49 miles from Binghamton to Ithaca, NY (06/22/03) in the first annual Skate for Justice event, calling for an end to the War on Drugs.

snip-

Read Story Here

 


postcard concept and design by
Ken Brown- 1994

-------

 
Hip-Hop and Friends Turn Up The Volume

by Preston Peet

posted at DrugWar.com
June 7, 2003


Russell Simmons addresses the crowd
photo- Steve Wishnia

A heavy police presence and a dark gray sky threatening to pour more rain upon already drenched downtown New York City streets did not keep thousands of young people from standing shoulder to shoulder for nearly 3 blocks to peacefully express their anger on June 4, demanding a repeal of the Rockefeller Drug Laws.

“The Countdown for Fairness” event was organized by Randy Credico and Anthony Papa of the Mothers of the New York Disappeared, Russell Simmons and Bill Gibson from the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, Bob Gangi of Drop the Rock, Dr. Ben Chavis, and Andrew Cuomo. Speakers during the 4 hour event along a busy NYC street right alongside City Hall included Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, Rev. Al Sharpton, Sean Puffy Combs, Mariah Carry, Fifty Cent and Busta Rhymes, Donna Leiberman of the NYCLU, Shawn Heller, HT Freedom Fighter of the year for 2002 and head of the national Students for Sensible Drug Policy, along with many other politicians, celebrities and musicians, including Millie Rockefeller, granddaughter of former Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the namesake who first signed the repressive NY drug laws into being.

snip-

Read Article Here

------
Oliver North- Drug Trafficking Hero on the Lecture Circuit

Should we forgive and forget, or hold him accountable for his extensive past drug trafficking ties?

by Celerino Castillo 3rd

posted at DrugWar.com
May 22, 2003


Author Celerino Castillo back in the day, working on anti-drug operations in Central America

....According to one member of the Salvation Army’s advisory board, it had been a done deal before North’s name was brought to the table for the approval. That same member further alleged that the real reason that North had been approved for the lecture was because North had allegedly once saved Captain Tom Gilliam's father’s life. Therefore, it turned out to be a pretty good payday for North.

Now, we do not dispute the fact that the Salvation Army does an excellent job in what they are suppose to do. Captain Tom Gilliam, a Salvation Army Captain, was quoted by The Monitor that, “I believe that the actions that the people (protesters) are upset about took place 20 years ago…” What the Captain failed to mention was that in 1991, the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington D.C opened a General File (GFGD-91-9139) on Oliver North for selling weapons in the Philippines with known drug traffickers.

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 

(Editor's note- This interview was conducted as research material for an article about Canadian attorney and professor Alan Young, the High Times Freedom Fighter for July, 2003.)

Man with a Plan- A discussion with Alan Young

by Preston Peet

posted at DrugWar.com
May 19, 2003


Alan Young (photo- Sherryll Sobie
www.sherryllsobie)

Preston Peet- Why do you do what you do?

Alan Young- It's partly personal, partly political. I grew up in that drug-taking decade of the 1970s, and understand the folly of criminalizing this behavior. Politically, most of my work in law has been to try to streamline the beast. Criminal law has become so overburdened and fat that it doesn't serve its purpose, which is protecting us from violence, be it physical or psychological. So my goal was to try to remove crimes of moral hygiene. I've brought challenges to pornography, prostitution and gambling laws, and most recently that one that's more personal to me, the cannabis laws.

P- So what are you after personally, legalization or decriminalization?

AL- The way I see it is decriminalization is a non-existent entity. It simply means the absence of penal law. It doesn't tell you what replaces it, so it clearly can't be a permanent position. I see it as a stepping-stone for legalization, the only clear alternative. The reason we need a stepping stone is to get over the discomfort people have, to habituate people so they are more tolerant. Eventually when they don't think marijuana a big deal, we can look at forms of distribution, either through the public or private sectors. If I were king for a day, I wouldn't even be talking decriminalization, as it's a silly concept.

snip-

Read Interview Here

-----

 

Tiny Turnout for NYC's Million Marijuana March

by Preston Peet
(all photos by author unless otherwise noted)

originally published at Hightimes.com
May 8, 2003

posted at DrugWar.com
May 12, 2003

NEW YORK CITY—With police far outnumbering propot protestors gathered for New York City’s March for Cannabis Liberation on May 3, the day began a bit ominously. But by the time the tiny—200 to 300 people—crowd, carrying banners and chanting for marijuana-law reform made their way down Broadway and reached Battery Park, it quickly became apparent that this year’s annual pot rally was going to be a lot different from years past.

snip-

Read Report and photos here

-----

 

Originator of Methadone Maintenance Treatment Turns 90

sent by Andrew Byrne,
Sydney, Australia dependency physician.

posted at DrugWar.com
May 9, 2003


Dr. Vincent P. Dole

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

This week marks the 90th birthday of Dr Vincent P. Dole, the co-originator of methadone maintenance treatment for opiate dependence. Even in the face of legal threats, Dr Dole and his team persisted with their pioneering work which has now become mainstream in most of the developed world.

snip-

Read Notice Here

-----

 
Mice, Marijuana, and Madness

Forwarded by
Jay R. Cavanaugh, PhD

May 1, 2003

posted at DrugWar.com
May 6, 2003

snip-

Las Flores is also the home of the Eva Peron Memorial Eugenics Institute which specializes in murine (mice) experimentation. It is here that science witnessed the birth of the first mice bred for cannabis experimentation (Mota mice). Mota mice can either have normal cannabinoid receptors (Mota N), have cannabinoid receptors removed in knock out experiments (Mota Minus), or have enhanced receptors (Mota Mejor).

What this reporter found is difficult to describe so apologies are made in advance for shocking any reader sensibilities and caution is made to not allow small children to read further.

The first serious problems arose when lab workers were shocked to discover that the Mota Minus mice not only failed to thrive but were completely nude (photo below).

Researchers familiar with the 60's in America would have known that there is a direct relationship between the growing of hair and cannabis consumption. Who can forget those long haired weirdo Haight Asbury pot heads? Obviously, however, cannabis, natural or otherwise, is required not only for feeding but for having decent levels of body hair. This research finding was suppressed by the Institute at the urging of local DEA officials attached to the Argentine military despite protests from some researchers who think marijuana may cure baldness.

snip-

Read Complete Shocking Report Here

------

 

Statement from Bryan Epis for the NORML conference.


Growing this flower for use
by sick people is still a federal crime.

posted at DrugWar.com
May 2, 2003

This is a message from Bryan Epis.

I'd like to thank everyone here today, but unfortunately I'm in federal prison for the federal crime of "conspiracy to follow California's medical marijuana law", and "conspiracy to open a medical cannabis dispensary in the ciry of San Jose after the San Jose Planning Department gave me a set of rules to open a dispensary, and after
consulting with the San Jose Police."

snip-

Read Complete Message Here

-----

 

Editor's note- The following heartrending report from the recent UN meeting to discuss the possibility of reforming, or at least taking a serious look and assessment of the failure of its stated goals to completely eradicate drugs from the face of the planet in 10 years, five of which have now passed with no results in sight, only added pain and destruction and lies, with no chance under current policies of ever doing anything but exacerbating any possible troubles and corruption and crime associated with drug cartels empowered by prohibition itself.

This is in regards to reports, such as this one from the US Government's version at Washington File, of the UN recently reaffirming its utterly failed and wasteful, not to mention corrupting and deadly anti-drug Convention.

The tears of an AIDS widow at the United Nations-Commission on Narcotic Drugs 46th Session 2003

by Andria Efthimiou-Mordaunt
of the John Mourdant Trust

posted at DrugWar.com
April 22, 30034

Imagine the Scene, the suits, the 'diplomacy'and then the lies. Lindholm Malou, a Green MEP from Scandinavia and arch-prohibitionist and friends present 1million anti-drug signatures from parents and others concerned that their children will not end up destroyed by drugs.

Towards the back of the hall, an AIDS widow stands in black with her red-ribbon blaring as always, her friend Ernestine holds her shoulders as her tears tumble down her face. Why is the widow sobbing? She hates untruths that lead to the deaths of drug users from AIDS, Hepatitis and addiction related trauma - overdose and poisons used to dilute street drugs. These are the fruits of prohibition - that is the poisons, the lethal and often fatal infections, and the overdoses as the users rarely know what the strength of the drugs they are using will be.

The tears of an AIDS widow at the United Nations-Commission on Narcotic Drugs 46th Session 2003

by Andria Efthimiou-Mordaunt
of the John Mourdant Tust

posted at DrugWar.com
April 22, 30034

Imagine the Scene, the suits, the 'diplomacy'and then the lies. Lindholm Malou, a Green MEP from Scandinavia and arch-prohibitionist and friends present 1million anti-drug signatures from parents and others concerned that their children will not end up destroyed by drugs.

Towards the back of the hall, an AIDS widow stands in black with her red-ribbon blaring as always, her friend Ernestine holds her shoulders as her tears tumble down her face. Why is the widow sobbing? She hates untruths that lead to the deaths of drug users from AIDS, Hepatitis and addiction related trauma - overdose and poisons used to dilute street drugs. These are the fruits of prohibition - that is the poisons, the lethal and often fatal infections, and the overdoses as the users rarely know what the strength of the drugs they are using will be.

snip-

Read Complete Report Here

-----

 
Some Still Scared of LSD, After All These Years

a letter by Robert Merkin

posted at DrugWar.com
April 17, 2003


photo from Erowid Chemical Vaults

The Hamilton (Ontario Canada) Spectator ran an "anniversary" feature on LSD Wednesday, April 15, 2003, so Robert Merkin decided he would "drop 'em a line."

"Though I've heard all the "Dragnet" horror stories about people who used LSD, the only real horror stories I ever personally encountered were the things that happened to people when the cops arrested them. And LSD didn't cause those horrors; legislators, prosecutors and judges did. That people went to prison for wanting to take LSD is far more surreal than anything I experienced on an acid trip."

Read Letter Here

-----

 

A DANGER TO SOCIETY, OR A VICTIM?

Wheelchair-bound grower
arrested and allegedly beaten by cops.

by Preston Peet- for High Times

posted at DrugWar.com
April 11, 2003

When is a 39-year-old wheelchair-bound man, who has suffered from spina bifida and other serious ailments all his life, a dangerous threat to society? Police and prosecutors in New Jersey say it’s when he’s growing marijuana.

snip-

Article Continued Here

-----

 

A Million Little Pieces-

a review by Jules Siegel

posted April 7, 2003


A MILLION LITTLE PIECES
By James Frey
384 pages, $22.95
April, 2003
Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, New York

"....Despite the Burroughs-inflected literary tics, this is an emotionally penetrating narrative that faithfully portrays the institutional
rehabilitation process. It's very commercial, too. Unlike "Naked Lunch," it would make a nice gift for a friend considering detox (one of the Bush girls, maybe?), whether as a warning or a comfort. Faithful to hallowed marketing considerations going back to St. Augustine, all users are portrayed as hopeless addicts. Drug rapture is described in physical and sexual terms and always leads to horrible crashes. There are no hints that self-medication can be a very effective form of self-treatment for emotional and physical maladies."

snip-

Read Review Here

-----

 
The War on Some Drugs is Over

Former Drug Czar says it was all an ‘unfortunate misunderstanding’

by Preston Peet

for DrugWar.com
April 1, 2003


"We were so wrong" said former Drug Czar John P. Walters.

In a surprise televised press conference today, the US federal government threw out its decades-long strategy of waging total War against some drugs and users, declaring it all an “unfortunate misunderstanding,” and a “crime against humanity,” vowing to offer reparations to all convicted and sanctioned in any way for any non-violent drug offense since the 1970s.

Former-US Drug Czar John P. Walters declared that he has been having trouble sleeping since re-reading a declaration calling for even more war than had previously been waged, written by himself and former boss William J. Bennett way back in 1995, which was widely redistributed on the internet this past weekend by wily Canadian activist Timothy Meehan.

snip-

Read News Here

-----

"I drove down from upstate NY. I was an NYPD narcotics officer for ten years. I have no respect for Bush, who has no respect for international law, who invades other countries in unprovoked war. This is strictly for oil domination and occupation of foreign land. I think Bush has no interest in world opinion nor the opinion of the American people." - Fred- Retired NYPD narcotics officer and Protestor

This Spring the Blossoms are The Explosions of Bombs in Baghdad, Not of Flowers and Life-

protesting the attacks is most patriotic, say protestors

by Preston Peet

for DrugWar.com
posted March 24, 2003


Union Square full of protestors not dispersing

The incredibly beautiful Spring day, the clear blue sky and comfortably cool air made for a surreal feeling in my mind. I realized while basking in the gloriously exquisite afternoon that across the other side of the world, there are people in Iraq being bombed into burnt, bloody broken pieces by US made and tax-payer funded bombs and missiles. Waiting terrorized under a blitzkrieg called “Shock and Awe” by the US administration and military plotters of the attack on Iraq, the citizens of numerous cities in that ancient region have no chance to enjoy the beginning of Spring, the season of new growth and birth, fearing death will rain down at any moment of the day or night and snuff out any more Spring days for them, forever.

Here in NYC though, there is a mass movement mobilized against the attacks on Iraq, one that began long before the bombs began exploding and the troops poured across the Iraqi border, a protest movement that isn't showing signs of lightening up now. Many of the protestors are just as concerned for the safety of US forces as they are for the innocent Iraqi civilians who may wind up as what is euphemistically called collateral damage. Many US enlisted troops come from the lower stratas of the US population, often joining up for economic purposes, to obtain funding for a college education or learn a trade. Now they find themselves on the front lines of a war that to many is simply immoral and wrong, driven solely by greed, economics and the goal of global hegemony, serving and dying for men who will never risk their own lives in their drive for global power. US troops are dying both in combat with Iraqi defenders, not to mention as victims of friendly fire and crashes resulting from faulty US military equipment.

snip-

Read Report and See Numerous Photos Here

-----

 

“Ollie’s Contra-band”

by Celerino Castillo

March 8, 2003

posted at DrugWar.com
March 21, 2003


Celerino Castillo
photo- Preston Peet

For several years, I fought in the trenches of the front lines of the Reagan-Bush’s drug war. I was trying to stamp out what I had considered American’s greatest foreign threat. While our government shouted, “Just Say No”, entire Central and South American nations fell into what was known as “Cocaine Democracies”.

The man that brought us this epidemic is none other than former Lt. Col. Oliver North. Recently, I read an advertisement in the Monitor where an invitation was extended to Oliver North to speak at the annual meeting of the McAllen/Hidalgo County Salvation Army. The fundraiser is to be held on April 5, 2003 at the McAllen High School.

snip-

Read Editorial Here

-----

 

The High Times 2003 Stony Awards Show

'This is how it can be'

text and photos
by Preston Peet
for DrugWar.com

Posted at DrugWar.com
March 20, 2003


Frank Serpico admiring his
2003 Thomas King Forcade Stony Award

What with the depressing warring on Iraq about to begin a mere week or two hence, (as I write this now as a matter of fact) it was with distinct pleasure that I set out with my girlfriend on March 5, 2003 for the 4th Annual High Times Stony Awards show.

Who ever thought that a political statement (which is really what a High Times awards show is after all) could be so much fun? The event was a blast, a smoky affair that brought out a standing-room only crowd to show their support for marijuana smokers and users and those who support the counter-culture by filming them and their lifestyles. The evening offered a much needed respite from the ultra-serious vibes happening in the world these days.

snip-

Read Article and See Photos Here

-----

 

Shamanism and the Drug Propaganda:

Iron
(chapter excerpt)

by Dan Russell

posted at DrugWar.com
March 5, 2003

The demand for metal, and slaves to work the mines, played a major role in the founding of overseas trading colonies. Archaic Greek states, 800-500 BC, founded hundreds of colonies throughout Europe and North Africa. The enslavement of the locals was standard colonization procedure. Slaves were at a premium since most children never saw fifteen; rare was the woman who lived past thirty or the man who lived past forty.

The canonical Boeotian Hesiod dated the ages of man by the precious metals mined by the slaves: the original golden race of the orchard garden, whose spirits "roam everywhere over the earth, clothed in mist and keep watch on judgements and cruel deeds, givers of wealth"; the matriarchal silver race destroyed by Zeus for refusing to recognize him; the flesh-eating bronze race "sprung from ash trees...terrible and strong," who destroyed themselves in warfare; the founding fathers of Mycenae and Troy who dwell "untouched by sorrow in the islands of the blessed"; and their descendants of iron, who "never rest from labor and sorrow."

snip-

Read More Here

-----

 

KUBBYS TO PUT FORMER PROSECUTOR AND U.S. DRUG OFFICIALS ON TRIAL

from Steve Kubby
http://www.kubby.com/

posted at DrugWar.com
March 4, 2003


Steve Kubby

VANCOUVER -- Placer County Deputy District Attorney Chris Cattran will face tough questioning in the upcoming Kubby Refugee Hearings, when the Kubbys will be allowed to question their former prosecutor. Other top U.S. drug officials will also face tough questions as well as dozens of incriminating
documents.

snip-

Read Release Here

-----

 
Osama Yo Mama Bong Laden…
And the coming of the Great Green Peril

By
Jay R. Cavanaugh, PhD

Posted DrugWar.com
March 3, 2003

The nation waits pensively for the next al Qaida attack. Our special anti-terror agents sweep the globe killing and capturing an enemy bent on the destruction of America and the West. Will a "dirty" bomb suddenly go off in the Mall of America? Will anthrax turn up in your Wheaties?

Or have we missed the obvious? Even while we gloat over the capture of the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the big boss, Osama Bong Laden, continues to elude us. His plan is simple and unbelievably evil. Osama is going to smoke America under the table.

snip-

Read Breaking News Here

------
Drop Bongs Not Bombs

by Preston Peet

For the New York Waste-
March 2003

posted at DrugWar.com
March 2, 2003


Attorney General John Ashcroft at Operation Pipe Dreams news conference. Appearing from left to right: Acting DEA Administrator John B. Brown, ONDCP Director John Walters, and U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan.

In what will come as no surprise to any who regularly read this space, at the moment I’m still aghast at the sick and twisted US federal War on Some Drugs and Users.

Marijuana may be called the Devil’s Weed by some rabid prohibitionist moralists, but I recently read that “God made pot, man made beer. Who do you trust?” While I’m not altogether sure about the God thing, and don’t begrudge people their beer, I certainly don’t trust the people running roughshod over our Constitutional and basic human rights in the name of their evil, destructive War on Drug Users while the same armed prohibitionists empower the freakin drug and arms cartels (read: Al Capone and Alcohol prohibition, if it hasn’t yet sunk in) as they simultaneously lock away my friends and acquaintances.

snip-

Read Editorial Here

-----

 

The New Salem

Jay R. Cavanaugh, PhD

Posted at DrugWar.com
February 27, 2003


Sarah Good in the Dock


Sarah hanged

...The dawn of the Age of Enlightenment began in America with a horror story that profoundly influenced the development of Justice in the emerging nation. No longer would citizens be tortured, presumed guilty, or face scurrilous charges based on unscientific evidence such as the description of the "specters" of the alleged witches who allegedly tortured the hysterical girls. Church and State would be separate and inviolate.

At least that's what we thought.

snip-

Read Editorial Here

-----

 

Helping Repeal the High Education Act Anti-Drug Provision

from The Drug Reform Coordination Network

posted at DrugWar.com
February 26, 2003

Dear friend of drug policy reform:

With the 108th Congress upon us and Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act being worked on now, we at the Drug Reform Coordination Network are writing to ask you to help turn up the heat on the student-led campaign to repeal the Higher Education Act's drug provision
(http://www.RaiseYourVoice.com).

snip-

Read Information Here

-----

 

420Times.com -
Yet Another Victim of the War on Some Drugs

From Rob Smith at 420Times.com

posted at DrugWar.com
February 26, 2003

I regret to inform you that 420times.com has been removed from the internet until Bush and Ashcroft leave us alone.

Many of my good friends and clients have been arrested in this recent sting operation, led by Bush, Ashcroft and the DEA.

snip-

Read Notice Here

-----

 
Operations Pipe Dreams And Headhunter Put Illegal Drug Paraphernalia Sellers Out Of Business

National Sweep Shuts Down Retailers, Distributors and Internet Sites

from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Website
(paid for by your tax dollars)

posted at DrugWar.com
Feb. 25, 2003


Operation Pipe Dreams news conference.
Appearing from left to right: Attorney General John Ashcroft, ONDCP Director John Walters, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, and Acting DEA Administrator John B. Brown.

WASHINGTON, DC -- Attorney General John Ashcroft and Acting DEA Administrator John B. Brown, III today announced the indictment of 50 individuals on charges of trafficking in illegal drug paraphernalia. The charges are the culmination of two nationwide investigations code-named Operation Pipe Dreams and Operation Headhunter and include indictments against national distributors of drug paraphernalia and businesses nationwide. DEA offices in Boise, Idaho; Des Moines, Iowa; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Dallas and Tyler, Texas were involved in these investigations.

snip-

Read Press Release Here

-----

 

U.S. Supreme Court Set to Hear Oral Argument in Forced Drugging Case

From: Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics (CCLE)

posted February 25, 2003

...The case is unique in that it will present the U.S. Supreme Court with the critical opportunity to update longstanding protections for freedom of thought. As we enter the 21st Century emerging advances in the field of pharmacology and other technologies make the direct manipulation of thought increasingly possible. "The Supreme Court has an opportunity in this case to recognize that freedom of thought is dependent on cognitive liberty," says Boire, "and it is imperative that the interest all Americans have in autonomy over their own brain chemistry be recognized and protected."

snip-

Read Release Here

-----

 
Gone but Not Forgotten

by Preston Peet-

posted at DrugWar.com
February 23, 2003

originally published in the New York Waste


Illustration Jeff Lewis

It’s around 3:30 in the morning as I stumble up Ave. A in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Mid-Winter 1995, it is cold, wet and miserable outside. Sleet and snow have been falling all night, making it difficult to make my way. As I slide along the icy sidewalk towards the stoop where I’ve been sleeping, I’m passed by a patrol car which comes to a stop just a block ahead of me. Knowing that’s where Merlin sleeps, I try to increase my speed, to see what’s going on.

snip-

Read Story Here

------

Allowing Patients to Defend Themselves in Federal Court

from Americans for Safe Access

posted February 20, 2003

We had an amazing press conference line up today in the State Capitol in Sacramento!

Attorney General Bill Lockyer joined with US Congressman Sam Farr and state reps, Senator Vasconcelles & Assemblyman Mark Leno to decry the federal campaign on medical marijuana and to announce support for plans to introduce bipartisan legislation to allow defendants to mount an affirmative defense in medical marijuana cases by 3 members of the California delegation: Reps. Sam Farr, Dana Rohrbacher, and Lynn Woolsey. The families of Bryan Epis & Ed Rosenthal, and 3 of the jurors in Rosenthal's trial were present to personally thank Rep Farr and call on all Members of Congress to join in the effort.

snip-

Read Notice Here

-----

 
“The real patriots are standing up in the shadow of the United Nations today and saying Give Peace a Chance” Rev. Al Sharpton, speaking at the NYC Peace Demonstration, February 15, 2003

“Martin Luther King once said that if mankind doesn’t put an end to war, war will put an end to Mankind.” Harry Belafonte, speaking at the NYC Peace Demonstration, February 15, 2003

New York Joins the World on the Road Towards Peace-

Defying Court Order, Hundreds of Thousands March in NYC, Joining With Millions World-Wide Who Today Said “No War!”

by Preston Peet

for DrugWar.com
February 15, 2003


Adam and Jeremy want Bush to pursue Peace

If the city officials of New York really were trying to stop people from marching against war on Iraq by refusing to issue a permit, and thought having U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones rule against allowing a march permit to be issued would stop marchers, they failed miserably. With figures ranging from a 100,000 guesstimate from an NYPD spokesperson, to attendee estimates of around 750,000, people young and old, of myriad nationalities, races and creeds, filled the streets of mid-town Manhattan today with a veritable carnival of civil disobedience for peace. Ignoring the court-ordered ban on marching, protestors exercised their Constitutional right to public protest, marching, telling Bush and the world in firm, loud voices that not all US citizens are blindly buying into any proposed pre-emptive strike and a subsequent war against Iraq, and will not be cowed into silence.

snip-

Read Article and See Photos Here

-----

 

Judge Rules for Chaos at Saturday's Anti-War Protest in New York

By Daniel Forbes

for DrugWar.com
February 13, 2003


NYPD handling a huge protest peacefully-
photo Preston Peet

...

As endorsed by Judge Jones on Monday, the city has seemingly transformed a largely self-policing, follow-your-nose chant-and-sing march along any route the city might choose - UFPJ having abandoned its goal of marching by the UN - into an unpredictable and potentially chaotic cat-and-mouse struggle. Any rampant hooliganism will besmirch the peace movement, true, but also black the eye of civil liberties in a country touting itself as a democratic example to the world.

And, to the degree that news cameras focus on cops tussling with some kids decked out in anarchist regalia or some shattered plate glass rather than on throngs tramping by under a Unitarian or Queer or Labor peace banner, that apparently suits the authorities just fine. (At one point, UFJP's negotiations with the city were delayed because, according to its legal complaint, Mayor Bloomberg "needed to be part of the decision-making process…." And sitting with city lawyers before Judge Jones bolstering denial of a march permit were two U.S. assistant attorneys.)

snip-

Read Report Here

-----

 

ONDCP Report Released Today -- DPA Says They Use "Fuzzy Math"

from:
Drug Policy Alliance
www.drugpolicy.org

re: WHITE HOUSE DRUG CZAR RELEASES NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL STRATEGY


ODNCP Chief John P. Walters

posted at DrugWar.com
February 12, 2003

Drug Czar’s Office Masks True Costs of War on Drugs in Federal Budget Released Today

Drug Policy Alliance Denounces “Fuzzy Math” in New ONDCP Report

Drug Czar Excludes Incarceration and Law Enforcement Costs from 2003 Count, Falsely Announcing “Smaller” Total to Congress

snip-

Read Press Release and Access ONDCP National Drug Control Strategy Here

-----

 

Twins Study "Proves" Marijuana is Gateway?

Reassessing the marijuana gateway effect. Morral AR, McCaffrey DF, Paddock SM. Addiction (2002) 97;1493-1504

Comments by Andrew Byrne

posted at DrugWar.com
February 11, 2003

re: 'Addiction' supplement December 2002. "Treatment of marijuana disorders". Edited by Michael L. Dennis and Thomas F. Babor.

After complex statistical computations for both cannabis and 'hard' drugs, the authors conclude that the drug use prevalence figures are consistent with their assumptions, needing no 'priming' or 'gateway' effect for the increases seen in drug use prevalence from the household surveys. Rather than claiming that this disproves the 'gateway' theory (which remains to be supported by any specific evidence to my knowledge), the authors are very modest in their conclusions. They state that a gateway 'priming' effect may still exist but that their figures do not support it. It would appear that if such a gateway effect did in fact exist, that there would have to be an equal and opposite effect keeping the numbers using hard drugs constant. This latter would require some subjects to have a decreased propensity or 'immunity' to drug use. Such an interpretation would be curious or even spurious and thus, the reader is left to seriously question the gateway theory based on these data and the original assumption.

In this study, perhaps for the first time, the 'gateway' theory of enhanced vulnerability has been put to scientific scrutiny and found wanting.

snip-

Read Comments Here

------

 
"If you don’t allow drug consumers to be treated, if you treat them like criminals, condemning them to die in the streets, this is a crime, a crime that our institutions should be held accountable for. In fact, this kind of prohibitionism is a crime against humanity." - Marco Cappato

Anti-Prohibitionism -

a Conversation with Marco Cappato

by Preston Peet

posted at DrugWar.com
February 8, 2003

Marco Cappato is not your average politician. European Minister of Parliament for Italy‘s Radical Party (Lista Bonino), winner of the European Voice’s "European of the Year" award for 2002, and tireless campaigner for privacy rights and anti-prohibitionism, the 31 year old Cappato is co-President of the Trans-National Radical Party. He represented the Radical Party at the United Nations in 1998, and is currently working on efforts to reform UN anti-drug conventions with the International Anti-Prohibitionist League. Readers can visit their website to add their names to the growing list of world citizens who are tired of the War on Drugs and want it finished, now. Cappato graciously took some time to sit down to discuss the War- its effects and ideologies and his efforts to end it- with the editor of DrugWar.com last month.

Marco Cappto- "It’s quite evident that it’s a way of telling him or her that they should not show up, so maybe it’s better they die in the streets. This is what does and will happen. I told you before that we are legalizers. Sometimes from a political point of view, the harm reduction stance can be an obstacle to legalization. As I said before, people say you shouldn’t go towards this issue of anti-prohibitionism, just treat and take care of these people, give them medication and so on. This is an obstacle for a clear confrontation on the problem of the mafia and criminal markets. At the same time it would be cynical to, in the name of legalization, not to look at the needs of the people whose lives we need to save. I still prefer prohibitionist tolerance to prohibitionist intolerance. Legalization is an alternative to both, but at the same time if tomorrow morning, a drug addict is alive and not dead, this is already an important thing. This is a basic humanitarian thing...."

snip-

Read Conversation Here

-----

 
The DEA: Results Not Demonstrated - Or Are They?

By Stephen Young

posted at DrugWar.com
February 8, 2003

originally published by DrugSense Weekly

Talk about a demoralizing job review.

The spanking administered to the Drug Enforcement Administration by the White House Office of Management and Budget this week should have smarted, even as it was delivered in the gray language of bureaucracy.

"DEA is unable to demonstrate its progress in reducing the availability of illegal drugs in the U.S. While DEA has developed some strategic goals and objectives, these goals lack specificity in targets and time frames," according to the White House assessment. "DEA managers are not held accountable for achieving results."

snip-

Read Report Here

-----

 

Transcendent Laws of the Heart

Jay R. Cavanaugh, PhD
National Director
American Alliance for Medical Cannabis

posted at DrugWar.com
February 6, 2003

"Jurors should acquit, even against the judge's instruction... if exercising their judgement with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction the charge of the court is wrong."
-- Alexander Hamilton, 1804

Having just convicted medical cannabis gardener Ed Rosenthal in a San Francisco Federal Court, five of the twelve person jury recanted their verdict and called for a new trial. Jurors complained publicly of judicial intimidation and wrongly sequestered evidence that would have resulted in an acquittal had the government allowed the entire picture surrounding Ed Rosenthal's compassionate activities to be presented. Many jurors particularly resented having their hands tied by Judge Breyer who instructed them to disregard their conscience and sensibilities.

To most observers the battle in Federal Court was a replay of the recent trial of Bryan Epis in a Sacramento Federal Court. Many feel that medical cannabis has been on trial in these cases with the government bound to crush State Laws providing for the compassionate care of the sick, dying and disabled.

Unfortunately, medical cannabis was NOT on trial in either San Francisco or Sacramento. That's the whole point. Federal jurors were never allowed to consider the issues surrounding medical cannabis including enabling State Law, medical necessity, or mitigating circumstances. It was as if a man on trial for reckless driving was unable to tell the jury that his pregnant wife was hemorrhaging to death in the car on the way to the emergency room.

snip-

Read Editorial Here

-----

 

NZ's worst youth statistics bolster decriminalisation cause

MILD GREENS Press Release

February 5, 2003

"NZ kids are the most unnecessarily criminalised in the OECD too", say the Mild Greens "thanks to our country's pathetically negative, divisive cannabis laws - and highest cannabis arrest rate".

snip-

Read Press Release Here

-----

 
A Peek Behind the Rosenthal Grand Jury Veil: Manipulation Rampant

By Daniel Forbes-
for DrugWar.com


Ed Rosenthal

February 4, 2003

Groping for an indictment of Ed Rosenthal from a California grand jury veering out of control, Assistant U.S. Attorney George L. Bevan, Jr sought some reply to a rebellious grand juror who'd just argued that most of the jury had probably voted for the state's 1996 medical marijuana initiative. Said this official of a federal government currently running roughshod all over California, "Whatever, that's good."

And then this federal prosecutor admitted: "The fact of the matter is it allows marijuana for your personal use and - to be cultivated, and if you are the primary caregiver."

Had Bevan made such a statement during Rosenthal's actual trial, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer would have immediately stifled him.

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 

Medical Marijuana Jurors Offer Apology to Rosenthal and Family

Jurors and City Officials Express Outrage, Demand a Retrial

Rally on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2003

from
Americans for Safe Access

Outraged jurors in the Ed Rosenthal medical marijuana trial will make a
statement at a news conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, February 4 at
the Federal Courthouse. Jury Foreman Charles Sackett will be joined by
fellow jurors in apologizing to Rosenthal for a verdict they say was not
just. They will also present a letter asking for a retrial.

snip-

Read Announcement Here

-----

 

Shredding the Veil of Banality

Richard Metzger's
"Disinformation- The Interviews"

a review by Preston Peet
for DrugWar.com

Feb. 2, 2003

If “occultism is not an attempt to draw aside the veil of the unknown, but simply the veil of banality that we call the present,” as Colin Wilson wrote in his 1971 classic, “The Occult,” then Richard Metzger is an occultist extraordinaire.

snip-

Read Review Here

-----

 

Ed Rosenthal Found Guilty -- New Trial Sought

from Green-Aid
The Medical Marijuana Legal Defense and Educations Fund, Inc.

Friday, January 31 -- In front of a crowd of spectators and supporters, many of whom sobbed as the verdict was read, noted author and activist Ed Rosenthal was convicted in federal court today of marijuana cultivation charges.

snip-

Read Report Here

-----

 
Statement of Ed Rosenthal on the Medical Marijuana Trial Verdict

from Green-Aid
The Medical Marijuana Legal Defense and Educations Fund, Inc.


Ed Rosenthal shows off his Special Recognition Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Firecracker Alternative Book Awards Show held in NYC May 3, 2002

January 31, 2003

..."Federal prosecutors made extraordinary efforts to block the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Because the truth is that I was deputized by the City of Oakland to legally grow marijuana for medicinal use by sick or dying patients under California¹s Prop 215, the Compassionate Use Act, the law that is supposed to guarantee safe and legal access to medicinal marijuana."

snip-

Read Statement Here

-----

 

Verdict Awaited in Federal Medical Marijuana Trial

Jury Deliberating on Charges that Could Mean Life Sentence

posted at DrugWar.com
Jan. 31, 2003

from Green-Aid
The Medical Marijuana Legal Defense and Educations Fund, Inc.

Thursday, January 30 -- The case of the United States vs. Edward Rosenthal, marijuana author and activist, is now in the hands of a jury of his peers, or as close to a jury of his peers as U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer would allow.

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 
Drug Czar Super Bowl Ad Features Anti-Abortion Subtext

By Daniel Forbes-
for DrugWar.com


Outcome dictated by ONDCP?

January 30, 2003

No, the White House anti-drug ads don't work, the latest, stealth report from the federal government indicates. Commissioned by the Office of National Drug Control Policy and conducted under the auspices of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, it states: "There is no evidence yet consistent with a desirable effect of the [Media] Campaign on youth." Though this semi-annual report builds on the poor results documented previously, the taxpayer-funded ads - despite their demonstrated inability to keep kids from drugs - do serve any number of purposes. One new use for the campaign made its debut during the year's high-profile advertising showcase, Sunday's Super Bowl.

As Joseph R. Giganti, Director of Media and Government Relations at the American Life League stated after reviewing the new anti-marijuana ad - entitled "Pregnancy" - on ONDCP's website, "Without question, there is a very strong but subtle pro-life statement presented in this commercial."

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 

Defense Begins Thursday in Federal Medical Marijuana Trial

Former City Councilman to Testify; Judge Blocks Others

from Green-Aid
The Medical Marijuana Legal Defense and Educations Fund, Inc.

posted Jan. 30, 2003

Wednesday, January 29 -- The marijuana cultivation trial of author and activist Ed Rosenthal resumed today in San Francisco federal court with the testimony of several witnesses for the prosecution, and the judge’s refusal to allow the defense to put on the stand most of the witnesses they sought to have testify.

snip-

Read Update Here

--------

 

Medical Cannabis Reduces the Need for Prescribed Narcotics and Sedatives

A Summary of an Internet Poll Conducted By The American Alliance for Medical Cannabis

Jay R. Cavanaugh, PhD
National Director

posted at DrugWar.com
January 28, 2003


Better than sedatives?

During the month of January, 2003, the Alliance featured a front page website poll for medical cannabis patients. This is the fourth poll in our series and possibly the most important. As the chart below details, patients were asked how their use of medical cannabis had affected their use of prescribed narcotic and/or sedative medication. Over 100 patients responded.

Even with offering the usual disclaimer about the lack of science in website polling, it is obvious that some startling results are evident in patient experience as self reported in an anonymous fashion. This initial patient survey should be followed by a rigorous epidemiological study if only the government would allow much less fund such a study.

snip-

Read Complete Poll Results Here

----

 
They Were America's Nobody

Is it Really a Volunteer Army?

by Robert Merkin

posted at DrugWar.com
January 27, 2003

---

My life straddles the last American war that filled its ranks with a draft-- I got caught in it -- and the creepy thing that replaced the draft, which was euphemistically titled "The All-Volunteer Military."

snip-

Read Comments
and access Real Audio File Here

-----

 
The Calm Before the Storm

by Preston Peet-
for the New York Waste-
Feb. 2003


peacefully ill

posted at DrugWar.com
January 26, 2003

.....

“You’ve done heroin? That’s the one drug I really want to try, but I haven’t ever seen it,” Jennifer says to Thomas one early Winter evening, staring at him with her great big eyes, sitting up half naked in their bed in Atlanta, Georgia. They’ve been discussing their favorite topics- music, sex and drugs.

“Oh yeah?” says Thomas. “How would you want to do it, sniff, smoke or shoot it?”

“Shoot it for sure,” she replied.

Thomas has himself a mission....

snip-

Read Story Here

-----

 

Four Cheers for the NJ Weedman, and Justice in America

by Georgina Shanley

posted at DrugWar.com
Jan. 25, 2003

January 24th, 2003 - U.S. District Judge Ireanas has ordered the State of NJ to release Mr Edward R. Forchion, aka www.njweedman.com, back into the Intensive Surpervision Program.(ISP).

snip-

Read Report Here

----

 

Marijuana Disorder

comments by Andrew Byrne

posted at DrugWar.com Jan. 25, 2003

re: 'Addiction' supplement December 2002. "Treatment of marijuana disorders". Edited by Michael L. Dennis and Thomas F. Babor.

Dear Colleagues,

This edition of Addiction on cannabis is most unusual in several respects, for a scientific journal. Least controversial is that 'cannabis', the normal scientific term, is used interchangeably with the American intrusive term 'marijuana' which should probably now be avoided in serious research writing. Further, some authors appear to assume that cannabis use automatically warrants the term 'disorder' and still further that this is requires treatment in a high proportion of cases. This Addiction 'special issue' was 'made possible by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) ... US Department of Health and Human Services'. This sort of patronage of a scientific journal is unusual in my experience. I do not know whether 'special editions' or 'supplements' as such are peer reviewed in the normal way.

snip-

Read Commentary Here

-------

 

Government's Attempt to Silence Activist in Medical Marijuana Trial Fails

Court Hears Testimony on How Rosenthal Helped Patients Live Better Lives

from GreenAid-
The Medical Marijuana Legal Defense and Educations Fund, Inc.

posted at DrugWar.com
Jan. 25, 2003

Thursday, January 23, 2003 -- The U.S. government's attempt to silence marijuana-cultivation expert and author Ed Rosenthal, as well as his attorneys, was thwarted today in federal court, but those assembled to hear the outcome of the latest twist in what was already a Kafkaesque legal saga had to wait to the end of the day for the judge's decision.

snip-

Read Report Here

------

 

Trust But Verify

by Doug McVay- Common Sense for Drug Policy-
for DrugWar.com


Using this stuff leads to hard drug
use and abuse?

posted Jan. 23, 2003

The drug war rests on a bed of lies. From time to time, new studies come out which are claimed by drug warriors to support one or another myth. Sometimes, getting to the truth is relatively easy.

By now people have heard of the just-published report in JAMA regarding 'gateway theory' and cannabis use

(it's available free from JAMA at
http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v289n4/rfull/joc21156.html).

Many media outlets are reporting the research as showing that cannabis use at an early age leads to use of hard drugs later on. There's a good deal less -- and more -- to the study than has been reported so far, at least in the US.

snip-

Read Report Here

------

 

[DrugWar.com editor's note- Here is yet another instance of the stifling of a US citizen's First Amendment Rights to Free Speech. First Ed "NJWeedman" Forchion in New Jersey, now Ed Rosenthal in California, what is the heck is going on this country? Oh yeah, there's a War on Some Drugs and Users going on, trumping our Constitutionally guaranteed rights.]

Gag Order Fight Draws First-Amendment Expert to Rosenthal Defense

Federal Government Seeks to Silence Self-Help Author Ed Rosenthal

from GreenAid-
The Medical Marijuana Legal Defense and Educations Fund, Inc.

posted DrugWar.com
Jan. 23, 2003

Wednesday, January 22 -- Fear of frontpage newspaper articles, radio news interviews and television reports "contaminating the jury," prompted Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan to ask for a gag order on Ed Rosenthal, his attorneys and his family, forbidding any of them to speak to the press until the conclusion of Mr. Rosenthal’s trial.

snip-

Read Report Here

------

 

An American Tragedy

The Continuing Prosecution of Ed "NJWeedman" Forchion

by Georgina Shanley for DrugWar.com

for more background, please see-
No Freedom of Speech for Ed NJWeedman Forchion

posted Jan. 22, 2003

On January 21st, 2003, the U.S. District Court in Camden, New Jersey, saw another round in the battle to keep alive the almost-extinct Bill of Rights. It was a cold and frosty morning in Camden. Federal Judge Joseph Irenas called for a meeting in his chambers when Deputy Attorney General of New Jersey James Harris along with an unidentified co-Deputy AG, Ed Barocas, the legal director of the New Jersey ACLU, and John Saykanic assembled for the hearing. The intent was to find out from the 3-Judge Resentencing Panel of the Intensive Supervision Program (ISP) whether they would be willing to give the go-ahead by telephone to allow Ed Forchion to return and complete his ISP program. If they refused then Judge Irenas would generate an "injunction to that effect". All seemed straightforward and hopeful.

snip-

Read Report Here

-----

 

Ed Rosenthal's Federal Trial Begins-

Feds Falter on Pot Plant Count

from GreenAid-
The Medical Marijuana Legal Defense and Educations Fund, Inc.

posted at DrugWar.com
Jan. 22, 2003


Ed Rosenthal

Tuesday, January 21 -- In the midst of a minor media blitz, the cultivation trial of marijuana activist and noted author Ed Rosenthal got underway in San Francisco federal court today. Assistant U.S. Attorney George Beven outlined the case against the man known as the foremost expert on marijuana growing, without actually discussing what Mr. Rosenthal was doing -- providing small starter clones of high-potency female plants to local marijuana dispensaries for distribution to qualified patients. The result was a disjointed opening argument. After a preliminary discussion with judge about whether the purpose of Mr. Rosenthal’s activities could be mentioned -- it couldn’t -- the defense elected to reserve its opening argument for after the prosecution completed presenting its case.

snip-

Read Report Here

-----

 
Reckless Disregard

by Jay R. Cavanaugh, PhD
Member, California State Board of Pharmacy 1980-90

posted at DrugWar.com
January 21, 2003


sketch by Preston Peet

There are several mass murderers loose in America. Collectively they kill more innocent men, women, and children than all the drunk drivers, illicit drug pushers, and gang bangers combined.

This collection of serial killers with reckless disregard of human life, extinguishes the hopes and lives of over 100,000 Americans every year. In the past decade they are responsible for over one million innocents yet not only have they not faced justice, they have enriched themselves with profits that would make Bill Gates envious.

snip-

Read Editorial Here

------

 
Pot Flashback

Did Drug Czar John Walters illegally campaign against a pro-marijuana ballot initiative? Nevada's Secretary of State wants to know.

By Daniel Forbes for Reason Online


US Drug Czar and possible
illegal campaigner, John P. Walters

Derided by the White House as "nothing more than a cheap political stunt," marijuana advocates' attempt to hold Office of National Drug Control Policy head John P. Walters' feet to the fire for his overt, taxpayer-funded political campaigning against drug-reform state ballot initiatives bore some small fruit this week.

Responding to a formal complaint from backers of the Nevada marijuana legalization measure that received 39 percent of the vote in November, Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller formally charged the nation's drug czar to issue "a written response to the complaint" by January 27th.

snip-

Daniel Forbes is a freelance journalist who writes frequently on drug-policy issues. An archive of his work is available at The Media Awareness Project. He is also a frequent contributor to DrugWar.com.

Read Report at Reason Online
http://www.reason.com/hod/df011603.shtml

--------

Down to the Wire for Ed "NJWeedman" Forchion

posted Jan. 15, 2003

It appears to be "down to the wire" in the case of Ed "NJ Weedman" Forchion. Today's edition of the Philadelphia Tribune has the most powerful commentary by Professor of Journalism(Temple University)Linn Washington. He says it all. If anyone is able to attend the State of NJ has scheduled the 3 Judge Intensive Supervised Program Resentencing Hearing 1/17/03 at 9:30a.m. at the Hunterdon County Justice Center, 65 Park ave., Courtroom#1, Flemington,NJ. It should be more entertaining than anything on TV as the State tries to finess its illegal incarceration of Mr. Forchion exercising his 1st Amendment Right of Free Speech.

Four days later on 1/21/03 Federal Judge Irenas will review the State's handling of Mr. Forchion. This will take place at 10a.m. at the US District Court, 1John F.Gerry Plaza in Camden,NJ. It is in the Federal Court where we are hopeful that Justice will ultimately prevail.

Hope you can be there. Steve Fenichel, M.D.

-----

 

Orwellian proposal to meet with Opposition at Tampa City Council Meeting-

Public Records Request Pending

For Immediate Release
To All News Media

Contact:
Anthony Lorenzo (813) 806-4619
Or Jodi James (321) 253-3673

January 13th 2003


Opponents to a proposed City of Tampa ordinance will speak out at the City Council meeting on Thursday January 16th at 9:00 am at 315 East Kennedy Blvd. The ordinance introduced by council member Bob Buckhorn would make it a crime to engage in pre-cursor drug activity in specially designated High Intensity Drug Areas (HIDA’S).

Opponents claim the proposal is unconstitutional, as it would unfairly target certain residents of the city. The ordinance would give law enforcement the power to arrest people for engaging in currently lawful conduct such as entering and exiting a vehicle more than once in an hour.

snip-

Read Press Release Here

-------

 

Outshined

by Doc Zombie

January 12, 2003
posted at DrugWar.com Jan. 13, 2003

originally published at
My.Marijuana.com


Terrorist or American Traditionalist?

(If alcohol prohibition was still with us, al Queda would be painted as evil moonshiners, despite the fact that Islam frowns on alcohol.

Imagine what said alcohol prohibition would look like here in the New World Order.....)

To satirically mimic John Walters' and fellow prohibitionists' hysterical style of fear mongering:

snip-

Read Article Here

-------

 

How the Drug Money Works


The Editor of DrugWar.com discusses Drugs,
terrorists, illegal money and official complicity in all with researcher Daniel Hopsicker at the Venice Beach by the Venice Airport in Florida, which Hopsicker suspects is the Mena, Arkansas airport of today.

January 8, 2003- Why does the War on Some Drugs and Users continue despite the obvious failure of every tactic tried by prohibitionists? Could it be that the illegal drug trade engenders such massive untraceable black market profits that the Warriors really do not want the War to end?

snip-

Check out the New Section Here

----------

 

Drug War: Covert Money, Power & Policy:

Interdiction (chapter excerpt)

by Dan Russell


The E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning & Control System

If you ask the DEA what percentage of smuggled drugs they intercept, they'll give you exactly the same answer they gave in 1928 or 1948, "about 10%", which is both a wild exaggeration and a cover story. A busy port receives over 100,000 containers a week. They can't even search 1%, let alone nail 10%. A DEA official in "candid" mode will admit they really intercept only 5%, still an absurd exaggeration, although the confiscation laws do enable the narks to make make money coming and going. They're just part of the system.

snip-

Read Chapter Excerpt Here

-------

 

First Court Date in Federal Medical Marijuana Case

Marijuana Expert/Author Ed Rosenthal Fights Federal Charges Today

from Dale Gieringer at CANORML

posted at DrugWar.com Jan. 6, 2003


Ed Rosenthal shows off his Special Recognition Award at the Firecracker Alternative Book Awards Show held in NYC May 3, 2002

January 6, 2003- Lawyers for renowned medical marijuana cultivation expert and advocate Ed Rosenthal will present arguments in federal court today that the warrant which led to his arrest in February, 2002 on cultivation and conspiracy charges is legally flawed and should be stricken. This could clear the way for charges against Rosenthal to be dropped. Their motion to strike the search warrant challenges the veracity of the paid informants used by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and statements by the arresting federal agent that are integral to the DEA case.

snip-

Read Notice Here

--------

 
HIGH COURT?

Justice Rules Canda's Pot Rules Invalid

by Preston Peet for Hightimes.com

Jan. 3, 2003
posted at DrugWar.com Jan. 4, 2003

snip-

“This ruling, while not binding in itself, will have an effect on other judges in Ontario,” said Tim Meehan, spokesperson for Ontario Consumers for Safe Access to Recreational Cannabis in Toronto. “Even before Justice Phillips’ ruling was handed down, a judge in Sault Ste. Marie and another in Chatham had said that they would not be hearing marijuana cases until this decision was rendered. Perhaps the most important effect of this ruling is that it will put a ‘chilling effect’ on some of the more rabid drug-warrior prosecutors, because if the case reaches a high enough court, it will become precedent, not merely something to take judicial notice of.”

snip-

Read Article Here

-----

 

Building a Better Future in 2003

by Erin Hildebrandt

posted DrugWar.com Jan. 2, 2003

2002 has probably been one of the most memorable years of my life. I've certainly learned more than ever before. Though not all things I necessarily wanted to learn, an educational year, nonetheless.

It's been very easy to become depressed and frustrated as I've become more aware of the roadblocks facing us. What seems so simple and sensible on the surface is too often twisted and skewed, and the loopholes make some laws and policies look like swiss cheese underneath their well-intentioned exteriors.

I've laughed and cried as I've heard the stories of many of the people affected by the drug laws, and stomped around in anger after hearing some of the ridiculousness coming from those who enforce the rules. Much of what comes out of John Walters' mouth would be hilarious if it weren't so despicable and dangerous at the same time!

snip-

Read Editorial Here

-------

 

Outburst- a New Years Tale

chapter 2 of Something in the Way

by Preston Peet

posted at DrugWar.com Dec. 31, 2002


fireworks over the Maas river in Rotterdam
photo by Rob Kaper

In some twisted way it makes perfect sense to him. The only way to insure that he’ll go through with killing himself by morning is to piss off those people most likely to really hurt or kill him if he gets them angry enough.

It’s New Years Eve in Rotterdam, 1991. Thomas and his girl had planned an evening at a party with some of her co-workers, but Thomas is banned from the bar where she works. Her co-workers have no trouble spotting the signs of addiction, nor realizing it has been him raiding the office safe. He really doesn’t want to deal with them, so he stands Jennifer up, finding her gone and the attic apartment they share dark when he finally arrives. She’s taken all of their CD's and tapes with her, and he thinks for a second that she's done it to play them at the party, but he can't kid himself. Four hours late, closer to five, she knows what he’s been doing. Everyone in Rotterdam knows by now. He looks like shit, loosing weight, accumulating an air of desperation about him. Even his dealers have been telling him to slow down. Fat chance.

snip-

Read Chapter Here

-------

 

The Experience- Ayahuasca

opening the doors of
perception

by Christopher Cadden- for DrugWar.com

Dec. 30, 2002


image taken from Erowid Plants Vaults

Yesterday, I met with the primo, the thing I always wanted to do because I knew there was a place for me within it. Somewhere in some past life I've been there, and in this present life I've always been drawn there. So it wasn't just a coincidence that random day I found myself visiting specialty herb shops on the net, and happened to land right on those certain herbs, which the shamans of South America have been using for centuries to make something they call Ayahuasca, or Yage. Its chemical name is DMT. It can be brewed from many things, which can be obtained legally.

snip-

Read First Installment of the Experience Here

-----

 

REPLY BRIEF ON BEHALF OF PETITIONER ROBERT EDWARD "NJWeedman" FORCHION


Political Prisoner Ed "NJWeedman" Forchion

snip-

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT

While the issue before this Court involves a flagrant attack on the First Amendment right to free speech and religion, Forchion involves a plethora of constitutional affronts which, it is respectfully submitted, must be considered along with the illegal ISP gag order. The First Amendment issues should be viewed through the prism of the State’s systematic, bad-faith denial of petitioner’s First Amendment right to free speech and religion, Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, Fifth Amendment due process rights, Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel, a fair trial and to present defenses, Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment, and Fourteent! h Amendment right to due process, fundamental fairness and equal protection.

snip-

Read Reply Brief Here

------

Shock Wave

by Doc Zombie

reposted with permission at DrugWar.com Dec. 22, 2002
(originally published at Marijuana.com Dec. 21, 2002
http://my.marijuana.com/article.php?sid=5262&mode=thread&order=0)


This stuff [Whiteshark Hydro in this case] is still illegal?

As nations around the world distance themselves from cannabis prohibition, enact progressive cannabis reforms, and turn their attention to more pressing social and economic matters, America grows ever more isolated.

When it dawns on the hitherto deluded American Public what a massive fraud their reefer madness has been all these years - and this is only a matter of time - the backlash will be seismic, and the fallout will last for decades.

snip-

Read editorial and access links here

-------

 

Pipe Dreams

by William Thomas- Investigative Journalist, Author, Videographer

posted at DrugWar.com with permission Dec. 19, 2002


Above left: Hemp stalks cut by feds' weedeater. Right: Alex White Plume views the carnage. Photos by Lakota Nation Journal photographer- published at Hemp Raid Stuns Family

Imagine a magical plant, the fastest growing on Earth, able to reach heights of 20 feet in a single growing season. Unaffected by pests, this plant actually rejuvenates the soil as it yields up to 10 tons per acre during two or three harvests a year. When harvested it can produce more than 25,000 useful products ranging from potent natural medicines, high-quality paper, durable clothing, construction paneling, easily digestible protein and a much cleaner-burning fuel than the gasoline and diesel oil it replaces.

If this sounds like a 'pipe dream', you're close to the truth. But you might wonder what reality censor has been editing history when you learn that this miracle plant not only exists but has been used in most of these applications by human communities worldwide for at least 10,000 years. Until, that is, its recent prohibition as a "dangerous substance."

snip-

Read Editorial Here

--------

 

Every Field a Killing Field

by Preston Peet- for DrugWar.com
posted Dec. 16, 2002


The CIA Logo

US President GW Bush has further loosened the reigns governing who the CIA is allowed to kill without asking permission, anywhere it deems necessary if they first label the targets as terrorists. This is, as reported by the New York Times (Dec. 15, 2002- free NYTimes registration required), only if "civilian casualties can be minimized." Apparently the Bush-legalized killing of some innocent civilian bystanders as well as accused terrorists by both the CIA and the US military is not to be considered terroristic but rather justified brutality in the name of Homeland safety and security, false premises both.

While shocking in its open disregard for any sort of due process, Bush's list of allowable targets, subject to admendment at any time, is an expansion of an order first publicized back in October 2001, and does not exactly issue in a new state of affairs. Killing so-called threats is not a new phenomenon, it is a stock in trade in official US foreign, and even sometimes domestic policies.

snip-

Read editorial and access multiple links here

------

 

The "New" Colombian Heroin Trade-
Here We Go Again

by Preston Peet- for DrugWar.com

posted Dec. 13, 2002

At the hearing "America's Heroin Crisis, Colombian Heroin, and How We Can Improve Plan Colombia," held by the Committee on Government Reform, (Dec. 12, 2002) one long-time prohibitionist publicly pondered what might happen if profit motives were removed from the drug trade, and another voiced his support for shooting down unarmed civilian aircraft and dumping mass amounts of deadly mycoherbicides on the country of Colombia and everything that lives there.


Rep. Dan Burton (R- IN)

Having taken part in over 100 Congressional hearings about illegal drugs and drug policies, Representative Dan Burton (R- IN) has always heard the same stories as he watched the drug “crises” continue to grow unabated. Burton blathered on using old Drug War rhetoric about the "new" threat of Colombian heroin, which he insisted is "the most deadly and addictive" heroin, and that "under the Clinton Administration we spent too much time on treatment and not enough on eradication."

Then, after carefully noting that he “hates drugs and people who succumb to drug use,” he asked the first panel of the day, a table full of prohibitionist police and federal representatives who depend upon the War on Some Drugs and Users for their livelihood, "what would happen if there was no profit in drugs?" It is a question that should be asked, Burton said, but as he himself bluntly stated, US politicians have been too scared to ask it. Burton asked this after mentioning the assassination of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escabor, bemoaning the fact that everytime "we" kill one drug dealer, ten more step up to take their place because there’s so much money to be made.

snip-

Read Article Here

------

 

Past Front Page Stories at DrugWar.com Here

--------------

 
Our Bookstore
Check out our bookstore for:
Drug Politics Books  Grow Books  Marijuana Books  Psychedelics Books  Shroom Books

Become a Drugwar.com Affiliate!
 Affiliates Login Here

If you have credentials as either a writer or webmaster/marketeer, and would benefit from free use of this site, please click here.

Illustrated bibliographies on:
Drug Politics  Ethnobotany  Grow Books  Herbalism  Marijuana  Psychedelics  Shamanism  Shrooms

Illustrated Excerpts
Read illustrated excerpts from Drug War by Dan Russell, with rave reviews & ordering info.

Illustrated Excerpts
Read illustrated excerpts from Shamanism and the Drug Propaganda by Dan Russell, with rave reviews and ordering info.


Yaje: El Nuevo Purgatorio by Jimmy Weiskopf

Search:
Drugwar.com
Search WWW
Search Drugnews from The Media Awareness Project
Some other powerful search sites:
American Journalism Review Newslink
Drugtext Libraries
Drug Reform Coordination Network
MAPS Bulletin
Mario's Cyberspace Station
NORML
National Library of Medicine
Schaffer Library of Drug Policy
Stratfor Global Intelligence Update
USDA Plants Database
Editor     Webmaster     Copyright/Disclaimer     Privacy Policy