Drug War Chronicle, Issue #469 (long version)

Drug War Chronicle, Issue #469 -- 1/19/07
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith [at] drcnet.org
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469

A Publication of Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
David Borden, Executive Director, borden [at] drcnet.org
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

Please make a generous donation for DRCNet's work in 2007!
(http://stopthedrugwar.org/donate) Send us feedback on our
proposed two-year-plan! (http://stopthedrugwar.org/twoyearplan)

Table of Contents:

1. FEATURE: DEA MAKES MAJOR MOVE AGAINST LOS ANGELES MEDICAL
MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES
The DEA was at it again Wednesday, raiding 11 medical marijuana
dispensaries in Los Angeles County, including five in West
Hollywood. City council members there had only the night before
introduced an ordinance to permanently regulate the
dispensaries, and they aren't happy.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/DEA_raids_11_medical_marijuana_dispensaries_in_Los_Angeles_area

2. FEATURE: NEW STUDY RIPS CANADIAN "TOUGH ON DRUGS" POLICY,
FUNDING
Even as Canada's Conservative government works on a tough, law
enforcement-heavy new national drug strategy, a study released
Monday says such approaches have failed.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/canada_study_says_tough_on_drugs_strategy_a_failure

3. IN MEMORIAM: A TRIBUTE TO AARON DAVID WILSON, 1971-2006
An activist's short but noteworthy life sets an example for
others to follow...
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/tribute_to_activist_aaron_wilson

4. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
It's been relatively quiet on the corrupt cop front this week,
but we've still got a Newark police officer who made a bad
choice of boyfriends, and the requisite pair of crooked jail
guards.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/police_drug_corruption

5. LAW ENFORCEMENT: FLORIDA COUNTY WILL PAY FOR MANHANDLING MEN
IN ERRANT DRUG BUST CAUGHT ON VIDEOTAPE
A video camera captured the brutality of a pair of wrongful
arrests in a case of mistaken identity in Pinellas County,
Florida. Now the county gets to pay up.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/florida_county_to_pay_after_mistaken_arrests_videotaped

6. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: BILLS INTRODUCED IN MICHIGAN, SOUTH
CAROLINA, MASSACHUSETTS, VERMONT AND SOON IN NEW MEXICO
Medical marijuana is currently legal in 10 states, but that
number could nearly double with bills already introduced in a
handful of states this year.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/medical_marijuana_bills_introduced_south_carolina_michigan_massachusetts_new_mexico_vermont

7. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: WASHINGTON STATE GROUP RAIDED
Local drug enforcement agents raided the offices of CannaCare,
an Everett, Washington, medical marijuana support and advocacy
group this week, accusing of it providing marijuana to patients.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/washington_state_medical_marijuana_group_CannaCare_raided

8. MARIJUANA: DECRIMINALIZATION BILLS FILED IN MASSACHUSETTS,
NEW HAMPSHIRE
No marijuana decriminalization bill has passed since the 1970s,
but legislators in Massachusetts and New Hampshire are ready to
try this year.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/marijuana_decriminalization_bills_filed_massachusetts_new_hampshire

9. TREATMENT NOT JAIL: CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR PROPOSES CUTTING
PROPOSITION 36 DRUG TREATMENT FUNDS
In his new state budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has
under-funded for the popular and successful treatment-not-jail
program Proposition 36. He's in for a fight.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/california_schwarzenegger_prop_36_under_funding

10. EUROPE: SCOTTISH LABOR POLITICIAN FIGHTS FOR HARM REDUCTION
AS PARTY TURNS HARD-LINE ON DRUGS
The Scottish drug debate heated up this week as a Labor Party
MSP attacked her party for heading in the wrong direction, and
more than 250 senior police, health officials, academics, and
others interested in drug policy pondered the future.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/scottish_politician_attacks_Labor_hardline_drug_policy

11. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of
years past.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/drug_war_history

12. ANNOUNCEMENT: DRCNET CONTENT SYNDICATION FEEDS NOW AVAILABLE
FOR YOUR WEB SITE!
Support the cause by featuring automatically-updating Drug War
Chronicle and other DRCNet content links on your web site!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/drug_policy_content_syndication_feeds_now_available

13. ANNOUNCEMENT: DRCNET RSS FEEDS NOW AVAILABLE
A new way for you to receive DRCNet articles -- Drug War
Chronicle and more -- is now available.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/drug_policy_RSS_feeds_now_available

14. ANNOUNCEMENT: NEW FORMAT FOR THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
Visit our new web site each day to see a running countdown to
the events coming up the soonest, and more.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/drug_reform_calendar

(Not subscribed? Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org to sign up
today!)

================

1. Feature: DEA Makes Major Move Against Los Angeles Medical
Marijuana Dispensaries
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/DEA_raids_11_medical_marijuana_dispensaries_in_Los_Angeles_area

Agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raided 11
Los Angeles County medical marijuana dispensaries Wednesday,
including five in the city of West Hollywood, where supportive
officials have been working with store owners to responsibly
regulate their operations. The raids mark a departure from
recent DEA actions in the state, which for the most part this
year have targeted dispensaries in areas where local officials
are unsupportive of or even hostile to medical marijuana.

DEA agents dressed in SWAT-style attire seized several thousand
pounds of processed marijuana, bagsful of cash, guns, and
hundreds of marijuana plants. Agents detained 20 people, but
none have so far been charged with any crime. It was the largest
DEA swoop in the county in recent memory.

The DEA raiders were greeted yesterday by dozens of protestors
chanting "DEA Go Away" and "States' Rights" along Santa Monica
Boulevard, where four of the raided dispensaries sit in a
five-block stretch. Thursday morning, about 100 people gathered
at West Hollywood city hall to protest the assault on the
state's medical marijuana law.

California voters approved the use of medical marijuana in a
1996 initiative, but the federal government has never accepted
that law. Wednesday's raids were only the latest skirmish in an
ongoing battle that has seen dozens dispensaries raided this
year. Unlike raids in places like Modesto, Riverside County, and
San Diego, where recalcitrant local law enforcement worked hand
in glove with the feds, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department did not participate, except to provide crowd control
for anticipated expressions of public displeasure, and was not
even informed of the raids until shortly before they took place.

"It's outrageous that we have a situation where the voters have
spoken, the legislature has spoken, the courts have affirmed it,
local officials are regulating it, and then the DEA comes in and
says 'we know better,'" said William Dolphin, communications
director for the medical marijuana defense group Americans for
Safe Access (http://www.safeaccessnow.org), which helped
organize the Wednesday and Thursday protests. "This is not how a
democracy is supposed to work, and it is a terrible problem for
patients. They say they aren't targeting patients, but they're
doing everything they can to shut off their access to their
medicine, and they're taking a page from the terrorists'
handbook by simultaneously hitting a bunch of places to create
an atmosphere of pervasive fear."

Medical marijuana activists were not the only people upset by
the raids. The West Hollywood city council, which supports the
state's medical marijuana law, had only the night before
introduced an ordinance establishing permanent regulations for
the dispensaries. It was thus little surprise that council
members reacted testily.

"The state of California voted to allow marijuana for medical
purposes," said West Hollywood city council member Abbe Land.
"The City of West Hollywood along with other cities across the
state have established regulations to govern the dispensing of
medical marijuana, so that people whose lives depend on this
drug can be assured of safe access to their medicine. The DEA
should spend their time going after dispensaries that are not
operating in accordance with local ordinances, as well as
unscrupulous doctors who write illegitimate prescriptions," she
continued.

"Today's actions again demonstrate the skewed priorities of the
Bush administration and the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration," said West Hollywood City Council Member Jeffrey
Prang. "Providing safe access to medical marijuana for those
living with serious and often painful illnesses such as
HIV/AIDS, cancer and other terminal diseases is something this
city supports. We have worked closely with our community to
insure these establishments operate safely and comply with the
spirit of Proposition 215 adopted by the voters of California."

The DEA couldn't care less. For the agency, marijuana is
illegal, period. For the feds, the raids are not about stopping
people from getting their medicine, but about crime, or at least
so they say. "Today's enforcement operations show that these
establishments are nothing more than drug trafficking
organizations bringing criminal activities to our neighborhoods
and drugs near our children and schools," crowed DEA Acting
Special Agent in Charge Ralph Partridge, as the agency displayed
seized cash, candy bars, and cannabis.

"We're here to enforce the drug laws," DEA Los Angeles
spokeswoman Special Agent Sarah Pullen told Drug War Chronicle
Thursday. "Those were marijuana distribution centers, and the
cultivation, possession, and distribution of marijuana in any
form is a crime under federal law. Obviously there is a drug
problem out here and there are many different types of drugs.
We're working many different kinds of cases, and these raids are
just one of them. We're doing our best to enforce the law."

"You certainly have to wonder if these guys don't have anything
better to do," said Bruce Mirken, communications director for
the Marijuana Policy Project (http://www.mpp.org). "They raided
several places in West Hollywood, a city which is working very
hard to regulate its dispensaries to ensure that they're
operating properly. The DEA cannot reasonably argue that these
were runaway dispensaries; they went after some of the most
carefully regulated dispensaries in the state," he told the
Chronicle.

"This is yet one more example of the federal government's
priorities being out of whack with any respect for federalism
and state's rights, let alone human decency," Mirken said. "One
can only hope this will give new impetus to efforts in Congress
to rein them in," he said, referring to what was known in
previous years as the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment, which would
bar the use of federal funds for raids on medical marijuana
patients and providers in states where it is legal.

"That's the only good side to this," said ASA's Dolphin.
"Speaker Pelosi is an outspoken defender of medical marijuana
access for patients, and we have a large number of new Democrats
in the House, along with some Republicans like Rohrabacher. With
this new Congress, we're much closer to passing something like
Hinchey-Rohrabacher. And we will definitely see much more
pressure for the DEA to provide some accountability."

When asked whether the agency might be setting itself up to lose
funding for raids against medical marijuana patients and
providers in states where it is legal, the DEA's Pullen deferred
to Washington. "That's a question for the director," she said.
"We're just here to enforce the law." A Chronicle call to DEA
director Karen Tandy's office has so far gone unreturned.

With the Justice Department and the DEA feeling emboldened since
last year's Supreme Court decision in Raich, it may be that the
only way to bring an end to the raids is to adopt a tactic
increasingly bruited about in discussions of ending the war in
Iraq: Cut off the funds.

[Advocates will demonstrate against the DEA raid on Monday,
January 22, noon, at 255 East Temple Street in Los Angeles, and
a planning meeting will take place the preceding Saturday. Visit
http://www.ASAaction.org for further information or to download
a master copy of the event flyer. Visit
http://www.safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=3747 for info on
supporting events happening nationwide.]

================

2. Feature: New Study Rips Canadian "Tough on Drugs" Policy,
Funding
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/canada_study_says_tough_on_drugs_strategy_a_failure

Despite formally adopting harm reduction as part of a national
drug strategy in 2003, the Canadian government continues to
spend the vast majority of its anti-drug funds on unproven and
probably counterproductive law enforcement measures, according
to a study published Monday. The report was released the same
day as a Vancouver Sun poll
(http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=7adaffff-acee-41aa-9981-946f98b9606c&k=22908)
that found two-thirds of Canadians support treating drug use as
a public health issue. Together, the study and the poll are a
clear shot across the bow for the Conservative government of
Prime Minister Steven Harper, which has promised a tough new
national drug strategy with a heavy emphasis on law enforcement.

Produced by the BC Center for Excellence in AIDS
(http://www.cfenet.ubc.ca), which is partially funded by the
British Columbia provincial government, "Canada's 2003 renewed
drug strategy -- an evidence-based review
(http://www.aidslaw.ca/publications/interfaces/downloadFile.php?ref=946),"
offers a blistering critique of what its authors call the
"Americanization" of Canadian drug policy. The study warns that
continued reliance on such policies would be a "disaster."

The study found that of the $368 million the Canadian federal
government spent on drug programs in 2004-05, some $271
million, or 73%, went to law enforcement measures such as Royal
Canadian Mounted Police investigations, border control, and
federal drug prosecutions. Another $51 million (14%) went to
treatment programs, and $26 million (7%) was spent on
"coordination and research," while prevention and harm reduction
programs were on a starvation diet with $10 million (2.6%)
each.

Canada has little to show for all that money spent on drug law
enforcement, the study suggested. The report showed Canada's
Drug Strategy has failed to stem the numbers of Canadians trying
illicit drugs. In 1994, 28.5% of Canadians reported having
consumed illicit drugs in their life; by 2004, that figure had
jumped to 45%.

The proportion of federal anti-drug spending devoted to law
enforcement activities has decreased from 95% in 2001 after the
former Liberal government began emphasizing harm reduction and
prevention in the face of criticism from the federal
auditor-general and other critics. But for the authors of the
study released Monday, the portion of the budget devoted to law
enforcement remains unacceptably high.

"While the stated goal of Canada's Drug Strategy is to reduce
harm, evidence obtained through this analysis indicates that the
overwhelming emphasis continues to be on conventional
enforcement-based approaches which are costly and often
exacerbate, rather than reduce, harms," the report concluded.

"Current federal spending on scientifically proven initiatives
which target HIV/AIDS and other serious harms is insignificant
compared to the funds devoted to law enforcement," said Dr.
Julio Montaner, director of the BC Center for Excellence in
HIV/AIDS and one of the report's senior authors. "However, while
harm-reduction interventions supported through the drug strategy
are being held to an extraordinary standard of proof, those
receiving the greatest proportion of funding remain
under-evaluated or have already proven to be ineffective."

That comment was a direct shot at the Harper government's
reluctance to reauthorize Insite (http://www.vch.ca/sis), the
Vancouver facility that is North America's only safe injection
site for hard drug users. On September 1, when Health Minister
Tony Clement gave the facility only a one-year reauthorization
(it had asked for three), he publicly questioned research
showing the site is effective, save lives, and does not increase
drug use or crime rates in the neighborhood. More research was
needed, Clement said.

That same day, the Canadian Police Association, representing
rank and file officers, publicly condemned harm reduction
measures. Association vice-president Tom Stamatakis told the
media then that harm reduction was sucking too much money from
law enforcement. "This harm-reduction focus has led to
unprecedented levels of crime in our city," he said, calling for
a new national strategy that focuses on treatment, prevention
and enforcement.

But that is precisely what is not needed, the BC Center study
found. "The proposed Americanization of the drug strategy
towards entrenching a heavy-handed approach that relies on law
enforcement will be a disaster," said Dr. Thomas Kerr, a study
coauthor. "It is as if the federal government is willing to
ignore a mountain of science to pursue an ideological agenda."

"I think it's great that this study has been released," said
Donald McPherson, drug policy coordinator for the city of
Vancouver. "It clearly shows that while there has been some
movement since 2001, there is still not a very balanced drug
strategy. This week's polling shows that the public gets it,
that people understand this is primarily a health issue," he
told Drug War Chronicle. "My hope is that people in the federal
government will look at the evidence and eventually realize that
evidence-based approaches are preferable to ideologically war on
drugs-type approaches. The fact that the public gets it will
help the politicians get it."

The study also won applause from New Democratic Party (NDP)
Vancouver East Member of Parliament Libby Davies, who in a
message to eNDProhibition (http://www.endprohibition.ca), the
party's anti-prohibitionist wing, said she agreed that "the
Conservative government must stop relying on a law-enforcement
approach to address problems associated with illegal drug use in
Canada. My NDP colleagues and I have long supported a harm
reduction, education, and prevention approach to illegal drug
use in Canada," she added.

"Prohibitionists have never been called on to justify
prohibition, and this report is saying they can't justify these
policies," said Eugene Oscapella of the Canadian Foundation for
Drug Policy (http://www.cfdp.ca). "This comes from a very
credible organization, and it will help to sway public opinion,"
he told Drug War Chronicle. "It will resonate with Canadians in
general, but I doubt it will make the Conservatives shift gears.
These guys are quite willing to overlook the facts in pursuit of
their ideological goals."

While Monday's Vancouver Sun poll showed only one-third of
Canadians favoring tougher, law enforcement-based approaches,
Oscapella noted, that one-third is the Conservative Party's
base. "The Conservatives will go with their base on this, but to
the extent this report educates the public, it could have an
impact on the margins."

Drug War Chronicle contacted the Canadian Department of Justice
for comment, but its press people referred us to Health Canada,
which has not responded to the query.

================

3. In Memoriam: A Tribute to Aaron David Wilson, 1971-2006
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/tribute_to_activist_aaron_wilson

Drug policy reform has lost a long-time friend and colleague.
Aaron Wilson, a member of DRCNet's Board of Directors from
1997-1998, passed away unexpectedly of heart failure in his
sleep on December 21 of last year, in his home in South Hadley,
Massachusetts.

Though Aaron's professional work the last several years was in
labor health and safety activism, his work opposing the drug war
would make up an impressive resume on its own. From 1995-2000 he
was staff and then associate director of the Partnership for
Responsible Drug Information (http://www.prdi.org) in New York,
where among other works he spearheaded a series of public
forums, authored a major experts directory on drug policy for
media (http://www.csdp.org/experts), helped to set up the
Voluntary Committee Lawyers organization (http://www.vcl.org)
and dealt with media himself. With Tom Leighton and Vinnie Kane
(a firefighter who later lost his life on 9/11), Aaron
co-founded the Marijuana Reform Party of New York, an
organization that garnered extensive publicity and twice placed
Leighton on the gubernatorial ballot. At Columbia University,
where he earned two masters degrees, Aaron co-founded the
Columbia University NORML chapter with Wayne Jebian and
organized with the Faculty Senate to bring about a much-needed
scrutinizing by the university of academic standards at Joe
Califano's affiliated Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse,
or CASA (http://www.casacolumbia.org).

Aaron was a major figure in the early development of the student
drug policy reform movement, work that was close to his heart.
During his undergraduate years at the University of
Massachusetts-Amherst, he co-founded, with close friends Brian
Julin and Kai Price, the U-Mass Cannabis Reform Coalition
(UMACRC), now the oldest continuously running campus drug policy
reform group. I remember during DRCNet's early days reading
about UMACRC's energetic work, including an action in which
members brought small, yellow-colored jars of liquid to a job
fair, where they delivered them to the booths of companies that
do employee drug testing. Aaron told me the group reached a
membership of several hundred people during his time there. A
personal encounter verified for me later that UMACRC's
achievements were indeed more than hype, when I met a cousin for
the first time who went to college during the same years as
Aaron and I told him what kind of work I do. My cousin told me
that he understood legalization because he had gone to U-Mass
and the issue had a high profile on the campus. Later, Aaron
served as the National Campus Coordinator for NORML, and in 1999
he conceived and organized an important early student drug
policy organizing conference
(http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/082/campusconf.shtml).

Those are a few facts about Aaron's work, but facts of that sort
alone fall short of really telling a person's story or what he
meant to those around him. One of the most striking things about
Aaron was how in his short life he managed to straddle such
different worlds and ideas. Aaron was a radical with a Rasta
cap, who was respected by doctors and lawyers. He was a gruff
anti-authoritarian, who might lecture you on the importance of
hard work and traditional morals. At a time when the drug policy
reform movement was more cautious than before or since about
anything that could be taken as "pro-drug," Aaron was an
advocate for "pot power." I think he understood the humor these
contrasts sometimes had. Speaking of hard work, I never
understood how he would juggle a full-time job, school and
multiple activist projects, and expect to come through on all of
them, but I saw the results.

Aaron and I lost touch a long time ago, and I regret the lost
years. I have occasionally heard, and since his passing read
more about, his deeds over the years. He was Executive Director
of the Western Massachusetts Committee for Occupational Safety
and Health (http://www.westernmasscosh.org) in Springfield,
where he trained union members in improving health and safety
conditions and helped families of deceased Chapman Valve, Inc.
employees get compensation for uranium ore exposure. He helped
put together the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow
(http://www.healthytomorrow.org), a collaboration between labor
and environmental groups promoting safer alternatives to toxic
chemical use. He was a member of the Amherst Town Meeting and
the Hampshire County United Way Board of Directors, and was
Board Chairman of the Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts. His
work in labor earned him much-deserved recognition, including
the Micah Award for Springfield Community Activist of the Year
and the Unsung Hero Award, and others. I would like to have been
there to celebrate some of those moments with him.

For me the old memories will have to suffice for me -- drives to
Charlotte and Atlanta for local harm reduction conferences,
attending the big New Orleans conference together, enjoying
music and cable TV in Washington Heights, laughing whenever we'd
meet one of the people we had only before known through the
Internet. Some of my best friendships and most valuable
professional relationships are owed to introductions Aaron made,
and for that I will always be grateful.

Friends of Aaron have organized a memorial service, taking place
at 1:00pm on Sunday, January 28 in Amherst -- they've rented a
large auditorium on the campus, and are expecting to need the
space. Visit http://RememberingAaron.org for information, to
read more about him or share your own memories, or to donate to
a scholarship fund established in his memory.

- David Borden (http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/borden)

================

4. Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/police_drug_corruption

A relatively slow week this week. We've got a Garden State cop
whose choice of boyfriends wasn't too wise, and the requisite
pair of crooked jail guards. Let's get to it:

In Newark, New Jersey, a former Newark police officer was
sentenced to seven years in prison
(http://www.wnbc.com/news/10733532/detail.html) last Friday for
selling cocaine and helping her drug-dealing boyfriend elude
police. Brandy Johnson, 30, a five-year veteran who was fired
after she was arrested in July 2004, admitted that she sold 11
grams of cocaine for $400 dollars for her boyfriend and lied to
police about the boyfriend's whereabouts after she was arrested.
The boyfriend was found hiding in her attic the following month.
Johnson pleaded guilty to cocaine distribution and official
misconduct last September.

In Hernando, Mississippi, a a DeSoto County jail guard was fired
Sunday
(http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/desoto/article/0,1426,MCA_451_5281884,00.html)
after a Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics investigation into drug
sales at the jail. Guard John Thomas, 29, had worked the night
shift at the jail since September. Local officials said the
results of the investigation would be turned over to the DEA,
and that Thomas would be arrested once he is indicted.

In Chicago, a Cook County jail guard was arrested January 8
after authorities saw him buying two kilograms of cocaine from
an informant
(http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=4924457). The
value of the coke was set at $25,000. Guard Frederick Burton
had been under surveillance for several months before being
arrested, according to the Cook County State's Attorney's
Office. Burton is in jail with bail set at $750,000 and a trial
date set for January 31.

================

5. Law Enforcement: Florida County Will Pay for Manhandling Men
in Errant Drug Bust Caught on Videotape
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/florida_county_to_pay_after_mistaken_arrests_videotaped

Florida's Pinellas County has agreed to pay $100,000 to two men
mistakenly arrested and roughed up by deputies from the
sheriff's department's narcotics division. Fortunately for the
men, Desmond Small, 26, and Christopher Lobban, 20, the incident
was caught on videotape
(http://www.sptimes.com/2007/webspecials07/video/force-video/large.shtml)
from a camera in a car rental office where the bad bust went
down.

The August 17 incident occurred when deputies following a
vehicle thought to be carrying drugs lost track of it. Minutes
later, another pair of deputies spotted what they thought was
the same vehicle and followed it to the car rental agency. When
the vehicle's occupants got out and entered the car rental
office, the deputies burst in with guns drawn and forced Small
and Lobban to the floor. One deputy put his foot on the back of
Small's head and and repeatedly pushed his face into the floor.
Small suffered abrasions to his face and a cut to his mouth that
required stitches. Rental agency employees said the carpet he
was lying on was so bloodstained they had to throw it out. The
video also showed two officers exchanging high-fives over their
big bust, and one of them apparently stomping on Small's leg as
he lay cuffed on the carpet.

Although rental agency employees who witnessed the arrest said
Small and Lobban did not resist, the deputies accused Small of
not cooperating. "I don't think they were resisting other than
just being kind of shocked," rental employee Brad Bess told the
St. Petersburg Times
(http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/11/Southpinellas/County_to_pay_for_bus.shtml).

"I was like, 'What the hell is going on?'" Small said in an
interview with sheriff's investigators released Wednesday. "I
said, 'Sir, I didn't do anything.'"

The $100,000 pay-out to the two men was approved by County
Attorney Susan Churuti. She said that given the results of the
sheriff's department's investigation, the pair could have sued
the county for civil rights violations, wrongful arrest and
personal injury.

The two narcotics deputies, whose status as undercover agents
apparently protects them from having their identities revealed,
are now serving 12-day suspensions without pay and are on
workplace suspension for a year.

But at least one county commissioner doesn't think that's
enough. "If I were sheriff, I think I would send a stronger
message that that kind of conduct is unacceptable," Commissioner
Kenny Welch said. "And I'm not sure I want to see those two
particular officers working narcotics in South County. I plan to
raise that issue with the sheriff."

================

6. Medical Marijuana: Bills Introduced in Michigan, South
Carolina, Massachusetts, Vermont and Soon in New Mexico
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/medical_marijuana_bills_introduced_south_carolina_michigan_massachusetts_new_mexico_vermont

With state legislatures getting down to business around the
country this month, the medical marijuana issue is showing up at
the statehouse. So far, bills to okay the medicinal use of the
herb have been introduced in Michigan and South Carolina, with
one planned in New Mexico. Meanwhile, in Vermont, which approved
medical marijuana in 2004, a bill has been introduced that would
expand the range of conditions for which it could be used.

Medical marijuana is currently legal in 11 states, beginning
with a California initiative in 1996. Since then, seven more
states (Alaska, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Maine and
Washington) have approved medical marijuana through the
initiative process, while in three states (Hawaii, Rhode Island,
and Vermont), it was approved by the legislature.

Arizona voters also approved medical marijuana at the polls, but
the law there is effectively dead because it requires a doctor
to prescribe it, which the DEA will not allow. Other states
learned from Arizona's experience and require only a doctor's
recommendation, thus getting around the DEA roadblock. In
Maryland, the medicinal use of marijuana can be offered as an
affirmative offense in the event a patient is arrested.

Whether this year will see additions to the list of medical
marijuana states remains to be seen, of course, but some
legislators have been quick off the mark. In Michigan, where
medical marijuana obtained its first legislative hearing ever in
November, Rep. Lamar Lemmons Jr. is set to introduce HB 4038
(http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(pmjkzcj50p5r1055sepdcdij))/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=2007-HB-4038),
which is essentially the same bill as last year's. According to
the Michigan legislature's web site, it will be formally
introduced on Monday.

In South Carolina, state Sen. William Mescher (R-Pinopolis) last
week introduced a bill, S 220
(http://www.scstatehouse.net/cgi-bin/query.exe?first=DOC&querytext=medical%20marijuana&category=Legislation&session=117&conid=2526746&result_pos=0&keyval=1170220),
which would allow patients suffering from any open-ended list of
medical ailments and their caregivers to possess up to six
plants and one ounce of marijuana. Patients would have to
register with the state, which would issue identification cards.

Mescher told the Florence Morning News
(http://www.scnow.com/midatlantic/scp/search.apx.-content-articles-FMN-2007-01-11-0013.html)
his wife had died of lung cancer 24 years ago, and doctors at
the time told him marijuana might alleviate some of her
symptoms, but that she could become dependent. "There were
concerns that she would become addicted," he said. "Here this
woman had maybe two or three months to live -- and in extreme
pain. It didn't make any difference if she became addicted."

A friend in similar circumstances now compelled him to act, he
said. "To me, it's no different than morphine or any other
painkiller that a doctor can prescribe. Some doctors say it
doesn't help. But if the person thinks it's helping them, then
it's helping them."

Mescher has a reputation as a determined crusader in South
Carolina. He fought for a decade to legalize tattooing in the
state so it could be regulated. "It took me 10 years to get
tattooing regulated in South Carolina," Mescher said. "I've got
a bulldog tenacity."

In New Mexico, the Drug Policy Alliance Network
(http://www.drugpolicy.org/about/stateoffices/newmexico/)
announced this week that it is again pushing the Lynn and Erin
Compassionate Use Act (last year's version here
(http://legis.state.nm.us/lcs/_session.asp?chamber=S&type=++&number=258&year=06)).
For the past two years, the measure has passed every legislative
hurdle, but not received a House floor vote for reasons
primarily unrelated to the issue.

The law requires a patient to receive a recommendation for
medical marijuana from his or her medical provider, after which
the patient must submit an application to the New Mexico
Department of Health for approval. The department will then
issue an ID card that permits the patient and a primary
caregiver to possess medical marijuana. A licensed facility
approved by the Department of Health will be responsible for
producing, distributing, and dispensing medical cannabis to
patients.

In Massachusetts, the Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts
(http://www.dpfma.org) reports that Rep. Frank Smizik has
reintroduced a medical marijuana bill, with this year's version
numbered H 2507. (Last year's version is here
(http://www.mass.gov/portal/gog_cache.jsp?q=cache:AEawuMohmTcJ:www.mass.gov/legis/bills/house/ht02/ht02742.htm+medical+marijuana&access=p&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&client=mgov&site=LEGxBILLSxHOUSEx&proxystylesheet=mgov&oe=ISO-8859-1).)
Modeled on the law adopted next store in Rhode Island, the bill
would provide protection for patients with a written
recommendation from their doctors.

Meanwhile in Vermont, which passed a medical marijuana bill in
2004, Sen. Richard Sears (D-Bennington), chairman of the
Judiciary Committee, has introduced a bill would expand the law
to include additional diseases and conditions and allow patients
to grow more marijuana for their own use. Under the current law,
only cancer, HIV/AIDS, and multiple sclerosis patients
qualified, but under Sears' proposed S 007
(http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/legdoc.cfm?URL=/docs/2008/bills/intro/S-007.HTM)
that list would expand to include any "life threatening,
progressive, and debilitating disease or medical condition or
its treatment that produces severe, persistent, and intractable
symptoms such as: cachexia or wasting syndrome; severe pain;
severe nausea; or seizures."

The bill increases the number of plants patients or caregivers
can grow from one mature plant to six and from two immature
plants to 18. The amount of usable marijuana they can possess
would be increased from one ounce to four.

The Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing January
11. Max Schlueter, head of the Vermont Crime Information Center,
told the committee there were 29 people registered for the
program. Patients like Steve Perry and Mark Tucci helped explain
why the law needs to be changed.

Perry suffers from degenerative bone disease and would like to
use marijuana to ease its symptoms, but it is not currently on
the list of approved diseases. "Because the law doesn't allow me
to legally use or obtain marijuana, I have to put myself at risk
of being arrested and going to jail every time I need to ease
the pain," Perry said.

Mark Tucci has multiple sclerosis, one of the currently approved
trio of ailments, but he said the current law doesn't allow him
to produce enough to supply his needs and forces him into the
black market. "I'm getting sick of going out to try to find the
stuff," said Tucci.

The legislative season in the states is young, but medical
marijuana is off to a fast start in a handful of them.

================

7. Medical Marijuana: Washington State Group Raided
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/washington_state_medical_marijuana_group_CannaCare_raided

Washington state drug enforcement agents raided the headquarters
of CannaCare (http://www.cannacare.org), an Everett-based
medical marijuana advocacy and support group Wednesday. Agents
with the federally-funded West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team
seized what they said was more than a thousand marijuana plants,
as well as computers containing medical records and other
personal information on about 200 people authorized to use the
herb under state law. No one has yet been arrested or charged
with a crime.

It is the second raid in a week at addresses linked to
CannaCare. Last week, agents raided the Renton home of John
Worthington, an associate of CannaCare head Steve Sarich, a
prominent Washington medical marijuana advocate who, according
to the Seattle Times
(http://seattlepi.com/local/300191_potbust18.html), provoked
police by "aannouncing that CannaCare will provide pot plants to
patients."

In the Renton raid, police seized six marijuana plants, and
Worthington screamed foul. "They went after me because I'm an
activist, and I've been terrorized out of growing," Worthington
told the Post-Intelligencer. "I can't have my kids frisked like
they're criminals. That was disgusting. I'm not Al Capone -- I'm
a dad."

Sarich, too, remains unrepentant. "Since they don't like medical
marijuana, this is an attack on the people that support it,"
Sarich told the Seattle paper while insisting he is no drug
dealer. According to Sarich, only a few ounces of marijuana were
found in the raid, and most of the seized plants were unrooted
clones and starter plants. The slightly more than $1,000 cash
police seized was to pay his utility bill, he claimed.

But the network of patients around CannaCare and local privacy
watchdogs are concerned about patient records falling into the
hands of police. "Who knows what they're doing with our
information?" said Steve Newman, who has multiple sclerosis and
has been using marijuana, obtained through CannaCare, for two
years. "It makes me concerned -- really, really concerned. But
we're pretty helpless. Nobody can say much about it," he told
the Post-Intelligencer.

"CannaCare had a lot of records related to patients they were
providing cuttings for," said Alison Chin Holcomb, director of
the Washington ACLU's Marijuana Education Project. "We are not
real comfortable with law enforcement having the ability to
disseminate information from people's medical records," she told
Drug War Chronicle.

The group may move to restrict police access to those records,
Holcomb said. "We're investigating what legal grounds we might
have for requesting that a judge issue a protective order, or
maybe even an order sealing those records," she said. "We want
to minimize patient exposure."

But if CannaCare and Sarich were providing marijuana to more
than one patient, there could be a tough legal battle ahead of
them, Holcomb said. "Under Washington law, a designated
caregiver can provide for only one patient. If it turns out he
is providing to large numbers of people, that could be a real
problem for him."

================

8. Marijuana: Decriminalization Bills Filed in Massachusetts,
New Hampshire
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/marijuana_decriminalization_bills_filed_massachusetts_new_hampshire

Twelve states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota,
Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
and Oregon) have enacted some form of marijuana
decriminalization, all of them during the 1970s, but if
legislators in Massachusetts and New Hampshire have their way,
that number will grow again this year for the first time in
decades. In the former, friendly legislators are reintroducing a
decrim bill, while in the latter, a local group is allying with
legislators to push new legislation.

In Massachusetts, Senate Bill 881, sponsored by Sen. Pat Jehlen,
with four cosponsors, is a refilling of a bill that was approved
last year in the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Committee. It
specifies a civil penalty for the possession of one ounce of
less of marijuana of $250.

The Massachusetts effort builds on years of work by the Drug
Policy Forum of Massachusetts (http://www.dpfma.org) and the Bay
State NORML affiliate, MassCann (http://www.masscann.org). The
two groups have brought ballot questions urging their
representatives to support various marijuana reform measures
before more than 400,000 Bay State voters, and won every one of
them. It remains to be seen if the popular support for reform
can be translated into a new decrim law.

In New Hampshire, a new grassroots group, the Coalition for
Common Sense Marijuana Policy (http://www.nhcommonsense.org) is
urging support for HB 92
(http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/ie/billstatus/billdetailpwr.asp),
which was set for a Wednesday hearing in the Criminal Justice
and Public Safety Committee.

"Despite the threat of severe penalties, many responsible,
productive New Hampshire citizens continue to use marijuana. As
long as these individuals do not harm others, we believe it is
unwise and unjust to continue persecuting them as enemies of the
state," the group declared.

Hopeful that the Granite State's "Live Free or Die" motto will
resonate with their peers, Reps. Chuck Weed (D-Keene), Paul
Ingbretson (R-Haverill), and Steve Vailancourt (R-Manchester)
sponsored the bill. But even though Democrats took over both
houses in the November elections, the measure's chances are
uncertain. It will be opposed by the usual suspects in law
enforcement and the Attorney General's office. The fate of a
2001 medical marijuana bill, which was overwhelmingly defeated,
also signals potential problems.

Still, despite a decades-long hiatus since the decrim glories of
the Carter years, legislators in at least two states will have
the opportunity to renew a long dormant reform movement.

================

9. Treatment Not Jail: California Governor Proposes Cutting
Proposition 36 Drug Treatment Funds
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/california_schwarzenegger_prop_36_under_funding

As part of his 2007-08 budget released this week, California
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed cutting funding for the
state's treatment-not-jail program, Proposition 36. Under the
six-year-old program, people charged with drug possession can be
diverted into drug treatment instead of being sent to prison.
Some 140,000 people have entered treatment under Prop. 36,
saving the state an estimated $1.3 billion dollars in prison
costs.

Passed by the voters in 2000, Prop. 36 mandated that the state
allocate $120 million a year for its first five years. Last
year, the first year in which the legislature had to set
funding, it approved $145 million for Prop. 36.
Schwarzenegger's proposed budget is thus a $25 million dollar
decrease from the previous year. But it is almost $90 million
less than the $209.3 million the California Coalition of
Alcohol and Drug Associations estimated is needed to "adequately
address the treatment needs."

To make matters worse, Schwarzenegger's proposal would funnel
$60 million of the $120 million into the year-old Substance
Abuse Offender Treatment Program (OTP), which requires counties
to come up with matching funds before they can get any of the
state funds. Cash-starved county governments will have to come
up with the money or they will lose out. The counties have
already said they will challenge that requirement, and the
measure could lead to lawsuits by counties or drug offenders if
treatment is not made available.

Schwarzenegger's proposed cuts come despite a UCLA analysis
(http://www.uclaisap.org/prop36/documents/SACPA_COSTANALYSIS.pdf)
showing that taxpayers saved $2.50 for every dollar invested in
the program. Look for a funding battle in Sacramento over Prop.
36 this year.

================

10. Europe: Scottish Labor Politician Fights for Harm Reduction
as Party Turns Hard-Line on Drugs
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/scottish_politician_attacks_Labor_hardline_drug_policy

On the eve of a major conference on new approaches to Scottish
drug and alcohol policy Monday, outgoing Member of the Scottish
Parliament (MSP) Susan Deacon, blasted her party's increasingly
hard-line approach to drug policy, defended harm reduction
approaches, and called drug prohibition "the product of a bygone
age." The harsh critique of the Scottish Labor Party's disdain
for methadone maintenance, push for abstention-based drug
treatment, and enthusiasm for taking children from drug-using
parents came in an opinion piece published in the Sunday Herald,
"The Political Addiction to Tough Talking on Drugs Has Failed Us
All."
(http://www.sundayherald.com/oped/opinion/display.var.1122075.0.the_political_addiction_to_tough_talking_on_drugs_has_failed_us_all.php)

Deacon, the MSP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, is a member
of the Scottish Royal Academy's RSA UK Commission on Illegal
Drugs, Public Policy and Communities
(http://www.rsa.org.uk/projects/drugs.asp), which will issue a
report in March. She is also a former Labor health minister who
will retire after the next elections. And she is increasingly at
odds with her bench-mates on drug policy. The party's recent
moves toward abstinence-based "contracts" for addicts and away
from previous support for methadone maintenance prompted Deacon
to respond with vigor.

"The fact is," she wrote, "it's time to get real. The
demonization of drugs and drugs users may make for
rabble-rousing speeches and sensationalist headlines but it does
little to promote understanding of what is really going on in
our society, to help those whose lives are affected. Here in
Scotland, we have seen too many knee-jerk responses and blanket
solutions. Policy and practice should not be framed by immediate
reactions to the latest tragic incident or research report. We
need a pragmatic approach to drugs policy -- not a moralistic
one."

The notion that methadone maintenance had failed was "nonsense,"
Deacon wrote. "What about the people for whom methadone has
helped them to move away from criminal activity, to hold down a
job or to look after their children?" Deacon called proposed
moves to restrict treatment options "utterly perverse" and said
the idea of taking children from drug-using parents was
"paternalistic and simplistic."

But while she explicitly defended harm reduction as a policy
approach to drug problems, Deacon also attacked drug
prohibition. "UK drugs control laws are more than 30 years old,
a product of a bygone age," she wrote. "A growing number of
voices, both at home and abroad, are raising questions about
whether the current national and international legal framework
is fit for purpose -- this discussion cannot be a no-go area."

Oddly enough, Deacon's intra-party foe on drug policy, MSP
Duncan McNeil called her critique "conservative." McNeil, who
first proposed the idea of "contracts" for drug users, said of
Deacon: "The harm reduction policy was well meant and necessary,
but things move on. Susan has her views on this subject but she
has become very conservative.
"The Labor Party has gone through an extensive consultation on
this, but Susan didn't take part in the debate on it at
conference."

While her own Labor Party was one target of Deacon's opinion
piece, she also aimed to inoculate Monday's Scottish
parliament's Futures Forum
(http://www.scotlandfutureforum.org/sff/default.asp) from more
reflexive drug fighter chest-beating. The forum brought together
more than 250 senior police officers, academics, community
leaders, and health professionals seeking a "fresh perspective"
on Scotland's approach to drugs and alcohol.

According to one account of the forum
(http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/features/display.var.1124391.0.0.php),
Deacon may have found a more receptive audience there than
within her own party. That account found leading police official
and drug policy experts talking bluntly about the need to get
beyond "macho posturing" and how the Misuse of Drugs Act was
"not fit for contemporary purpose."

With endemic heroin and alcohol abuse, and now, the newfound
popularity of cocaine, Scotland is in need of new approaches to
drug policy. With politicians like Deacon fighting regressive
tendencies in her own party and ongoing efforts like the Futures
Forum and the RSA UK Commission on Drugs underway, Scottish
politicians will have the knowledge base to act. Whether they
will have the political will to apply that knowledge remains to
be seen.

================

11. Weekly: This Week in History
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/drug_war_history

January 23, 1912: In the Hague, twelve nations sign a treaty
restricting opium and coca production.

January 21, 1943: The New York Times reports that swing-band
leader Gene Krupa pleaded innocent to a charge that he
contributed to the delinquency of a minor by asking 17-year-old
John Pateakos to fetch marijuana cigarettes from his hotel room
for him.

January 25, 1990: President George Bush proposes to add an
additional $1.2 billion to the budget for the war on drugs,
including a 50% increase in military spending.

January 22, 1992: The California Research Advisory Panel
concludes that drug prohibition has a more harmful effect on
society and the individual than illegal drugs.

January 24, 1992: A Washington Post editorial comments,
"...performance testing appears to be more effective than the
standard urinalysis now used in the industry both after
accidents and on a random basis." It also mentions that 97
percent of railroad accidents are caused by fatigue, illness,
stress and other factors not associated with drug or alcohol
use, and states, "On an annual basis, the test is less expensive
than periodic urinalysis, and it’s far less intrusive."

January 25, 1993: Based on a tip that drugs were on the
premises, police smash down the door and rush into the home of
Manuel Ramirez, a retired golf course groundskeeper living in
Stockton, California. Ramirez awakes, grabs a pistol and shoots
and kills one policeman before other officers kill him. No drugs
are found.

January 25, 1994: The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement
Act extends ONDCP's mission to assessing budgets and resources
related to the National Drug Control Strategy. It also
establishes specific reporting requirements in the areas of drug
use, availability, consequences, and treatment.

January 25, 1995: The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) is
incorporated as a nonprofit organization in the District of
Columbia by Robert Kampia and Chuck Thomas. MPP’s mission is to
provide the marijuana law-reform movement with full-time,
organized lobbying on the federal level.

January 23, 1996: President Clinton nominates General Barry
McCaffrey to become the nation's fourth drug czar.

January 20, 1997: The Lymphoma Foundation calls for rescheduling
of marijuana as a medicine and the reopening of the
Investigational New Drug compassionate access program.

January 19, 1999: Twenty heavily armed officers from the Placer
County sheriff's department in northern California raid the home
of Steve and Michele Kubby.

January 20, 2000: John Warnecke, former friend and colleague of
Al Gore at The Tennessean, contradicts Gore's characterization
of his past marijuana use as minimal.

January 21, 2003: Ed Rosenthal's federal trial for marijuana
cultivation begins. Rosenthal was growing medically with
authorization from the city of Oakland, California, but his
legal team is barred by Judge Charles Breyer from informing the
jury of this. Rosenthal is ultimately convicted but sentenced to
one day.

January 21, 2003: A Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) article
discusses a Commonwealth Government report that found tobacco
and alcohol accounts for 83 percent of the cost of drug abuse in
Australia, dwarfing the financial impact of illegal drugs.

January 21, 2003: MAPS and California NORML sign a contract for
a $25,000 protocol study to evaluate the contents of the vapor
stream from the Volcano Vaporizer.

January 24, 2005: The US Supreme Court, in a 6-2 decision, rules
that police do not violate the Fourth Amendment when they use
drug-detecting dogs to locate illegal drugs in the trunks of
cars during a legal traffic stop.

================

12. Announcement: DRCNet Content Syndication Feeds Now Available
for YOUR Web Site!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/drug_policy_content_syndication_feeds_now_available

Are you a fan of DRCNet, and do you have a web site you'd like
to use to spread the word more forcefully than a single link to
our site can achieve? We are pleased to announce that DRCNet
content syndication feeds are now available. Whether your
readers' interest is in-depth reporting as in Drug War
Chronicle, the ongoing commentary in our blogs, or info on
specific drug war subtopics, we are now able to provide
customizable code for you to paste into appropriate spots on
your blog or web site to run automatically updating links to
DRCNet educational content.

For example, if you're a big fan of Drug War Chronicle and you
think your readers would benefit from it, you can have the
latest issue's headlines, or a portion of them, automatically
show up and refresh when each new issue comes out.

If your site is devoted to marijuana policy, you can run our
topical archive, featuring links to every item we post to our
site about marijuana -- Chronicle articles, blog posts, event
listings, outside news links, more. The same for harm reduction,
asset forfeiture, drug trade violence, needle exchange programs,
Canada, ballot initiatives, roughly a hundred different topics
we are now tracking on an ongoing basis. (Visit the Chronicle
main page (http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle), right-hand
column, to see the complete current list.)

If you're especially into our new Speakeasy blog section, new
content coming out every day dealing with all the issues, you
can run links to those posts or to subsections of the Speakeasy.

Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org/feeds to view a sample of what
is available -- please note that the length, the look and other
details of how it will appear on your site can be customized to
match your needs and preferences.

Please also note that we will be happy to make additional
permutations of our content available to you upon request
(though we cannot promise immediate fulfillment of such requests
as the timing will in many cases depend on the availability of
our web site designer). Visit our Site Map
(http://stopthedrugwar.org/sitemap) page to see what is
currently available -- any RSS feed made available there is also
available as a javascript feed for your web site (along with the
Chronicle feed which is not showing up yet but which you can
find on the feeds page linked above). Feel free to try out our
automatic feed generator,
http://stopthedrugwar.org/feed2js/build.php online.

Contact us for assistance (http://stopthedrugwar.org/contact) or
to let us know what you are running and where. And thank you in
advance for your support.

================

13. Announcement: DRCNet RSS Feeds Now Available
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/drug_policy_RSS_feeds_now_available

RSS feeds are the wave of the future -- and DRCNet now offers
them! The latest Drug War Chronicle issue is now available using
RSS at http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/feed online.

We have many other RSS feeds available as well, following about
a hundred different drug policy subtopics that we began tracking
since the relaunch of our web site this summer -- indexing not
only Drug War Chronicle articles but also Speakeasy blog posts,
event listings, outside news links and more -- and for our daily
blog postings and the different subtracks of them. Visit our
Site Map (http://stopthedrugwar.org/sitemap) page to peruse the
full set.

Thank you for tuning in to DRCNet and drug policy reform!

================

14. Announcement: New Format for the Reformer's Calendar
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/469/drug_reform_calendar

With the launch of our new web site, The Reformer's Calendar no
longer appears as part of the Drug War Chronicle newsletter but
is instead maintained as a section of our new web site:

* Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org each day and you'll see a
listing of upcoming events in the page's righthand column with
the number of days remaining until the next several events
coming up and a link to more.

* Check our new online calendar section at to view all of them
by month, week or a range of different views
(http://stopthedrugwar.org/event).

* We request and invite you to submit your event listings
directly (http://stopthedrugwar.org/node/add/event) on our web
site. Note that our new system allows you to post not only a
short description as we currently do, but also the entire text
of your announcement.

The Reformer's Calendar publishes events large and small of
interest to drug policy reformers around the world. Whether it's
a major international conference, a demonstration bringing
together people from around the region or a forum at the local
college, we want to know so we can let others know, too.

But we need your help to keep the calendar current, so please
make sure to contact us and don't assume that we already know
about the event or that we'll hear about it from someone else,
because that doesn't always happen.

We look forward to apprising you of more new features of our new
web site as they become available.

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

DRCNet needs your support! Donations can be made by credit card
at http://stopthedrugwar.org/donate or sent by mail to P.O. Box
18402, Washington, DC 20036-8402. Donations to the Drug Reform
Coordination Network are not tax-deductible. Deductible
contributions supporting our educational work can be made by
check to the DRCNet Foundation, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt
organization, same address.

PERMISSION to reprint or redistribute any or all of the contents
of Drug War Chronicle is hereby granted. We ask that any use of
these materials include proper credit and, where appropriate, a
link to one or more of our web sites. If your publication
customarily pays for publication, DRCNet requests checks payable
to the organization. If your publication does not pay for
materials, you are free to use the materials gratis. In all
cases, we request notification for our records, including
physical copies where material has appeared in print. Contact:
Drug Reform Coordination Network, P.O. Box 18402, Washington, DC
20036, (202) 293-8340 (voice), (202) 293-8344 (fax), e-mail
drcnet [at] drcnet.org.

Articles of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle
appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

***********************************************************
DRCNet DRCNet DRCNet DRCNet DRCNet DRCNet DRCNet DRCNet
***********************************************************

- TO SUBSCRIBE, VISIT: http://stopthedrugwar.org
- TO CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS, SWITCH TO THE LONG, FULL TEXT EDITION,
OR SWITCH TO THE HTML EDITION, VISIT:
http://www.ga0.org/drcnet/smp.html
- TO DONATE, VISIT: http://stopthedrugwar.org/donate
- TO TELL A FRIEND ABOUT DRUG WAR CHRONICLE, VISIT:
http://ga0.org/drcnet/join-forward.html
- DRUG POLICY LIBRARY: http://www.druglibrary.org
- DRUG WAR CHRONICLE ARCHIVES:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/archives
- DRCNET HOME PAGE: http://stopthedrugwar.org