Drug War Chronicle, Issue #527 -- 3/14/08
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/psmith
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/527
A Publication of Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
David Borden, Executive Director,
http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/borden
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"
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Table of Contents:
1. HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE DRUG WAR: NGOS SLAM UN DRUG
BUREAUCRACIES, DEMAND COMPLIANCE WITH UN CHARTER
As the UN's Commission on Narcotic Drugs met this week in
Vienna, it and its brother UN anti-drug agencies came under
fierce attack for sacrificing human rights on the altar of the
drug war.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/527/ngos_attack_UN_INCB_CND_ONDCP_human_rights_drugs
2. MEDICAL MARIJUANA AT THE STATEHOUSE: PROSPECTS FOR 2008
Efforts to legalize medical marijuana via the legislative
process are underway in several states. We take a look at where
those efforts stand and where they're likely headed.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/527/medical_marijuana_bills_statehouse_2008
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4. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
A crooked Boston cop is headed for prison, a sticky-fingered
Indianapolis cop now faces charges, and the trial of two
Maryland prisoners accused of killing a guard is opening a
window into corruption in the now shuttered House of
Corrections.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/527/police_drug_corruption
5. PRISONER RE-ENTRY: CONGRESS P***** SECOND CHANCE ACT, BILL
GOES TO PRESIDENT BUSH
The Second Chance Act passed the Senate Tuesday night. It passed
the House last year, and President Bush is expected to sign it
into law shortly. It will provide $360 million for prisoner
re-entry services in a bid to reduce recidivism.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/527/senate_p*****_second_chance_act
6. DRUG TREATMENT: NEW JERSEY DRUG COURT EXPANSION BILL P*****,
AWAITS GOVERNOR'S SIGNATURE
A bill that would expand eligibility for diversion to drug court
has passed the New Jersey legislature. Gov. Jon Corzine (D) is
expected to sign it shortly.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/527/new_jersey_drug_court_bill_p*****
7. EUROPE: UN DRUG CHIEF TALKS NICE ON MONDAY, NOT SO NICE ON
WEDNESDAY
UNODC head Antonio Maria Costa let slip some intemperate remarks
during the UN drug meeting in Vienna this week.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/527/UN_drug_chief_claims_we_are_on_drugs
8. LATIN AMERICA: BOLIVIA DEFIES UN DRUG WATCHDOG, WILL FUND
PUSH FOR EXPANDED COCA MARKETS
The Bolivian government has responded to the International
Narcotics Control Board's demand last week that coca chewing and
growing be banned by publicizing plans to enlarge markets for
coca products.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/527/bolivia_push_expanded_coca_markets
9. EUROPE: DUTCH GOVERNMENT TO REVIEW MARIJUANA LAWS, MOVES TO
BAN GROW SHOPS
The conservative Dutch government will review the country's
30-year experiment with pragmatic tolerance of marijuana use and
sales, and the Justice Minister has announced he wants to ban
"grow shops."
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/527/dutch_marijuana_review_grow_shop_ban
10. EUROPE: VATICAN UPDATES LIST OF DEADLY SINS, ADDS
DRUG-TAKING, DRUG-SELLING
The Vatican has issued a modern version of the "seven deadly
sins," and selling and using drugs made the list.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/527/vatican_drug_use_sales_seven_deadly_sins
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/527/drug_war_history
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================
1. Human Rights in the Drug War: NGOs Slam UN Drug
Bureaucracies, Demand Compliance With UN Charter
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/527/ngos_attack_UN_INCB_CND_ONDCP_human_rights_drugs
Using the annual meeting of the United Nation's Commission on
Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna as a springboard, an
international consortium of drug policy, harm reduction, and
human rights groups Monday slammed the UN drug bureaucracies for
ignoring numerous, widespread human rights abuses perpetrated in
the name of global drug prohibition. The UN must stand up for
human rights in the drug control regime, the groups said.
The charge was made in a re****t released the same day,
"Recalibrating the Regime: The Need for a Human Rights-Based
Approach to International Drug Policy
(http://hrw.org/pub/2008/hivaids/beckley0308.pdf),"
endorsed
jointly by Human Rights Watch, the International Harm Reduction
Association, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, and the
Beckley Foundation Drug Policy Program. It was presented this
week in Vienna during a discussion of the worldwide human rights
impact of the drug war conducted as part of a series of events
countering the official CND meeting.
The CND, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), and
the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), are the three UN
entities charged with enforcing global drug prohibition as
enshrined in the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and
its two successor treaties. The CND was meeting this week to
review whether the UN had met its 1998 10-year goal to achieve
"measurable results" in the fight against drugs, including a
"significant reduction" in the cultivation of cannabis, coca,
and opium.
The Monday re****t cites murderous campaigns against drug
suspects in Thailand in 2003 -- and the prospect of a repeat of
that deadly drug war by the new Thai government -- the violent
police campaign against drug dealers (and innocent bystanders)
in Brazil, the grotesque Chinese habit of celebrating the UN's
international anti-drug day by executing convicted drug
offenders, the resort to the death penalty for drug offenders in
more than 60 countries, the mass incarceration of drug offenders
and the racially discriminatory enforcement of drug laws in
places like the United States, and much, much, more as evidence
that human rights comes in a distant second to the prerogatives
of drug prohibition.
In the face of this litany of human rights abuses in the name of
enforcing drug prohibition, the UN agencies have remained so
quiet as to be almost "complicit" in them, the re****t argues.
There has been "little engagement" with this issue by the CND,
the INCB, the UNODC -- or even the UN's human rights treaties
bodies, the re****t said.
"The UN General Assembly has stated repeatedly in resolutions
that drug control must be carried out in full conformity with,
and full respect for, all human rights and fundamental
freedoms," said Mike Trace of the Beckley Foundation, which
commissioned the re****t. "Delegations to this week's meeting
must ensure that their obligations under international human
rights law underpin all CND deliberations and actions."
"Despite the primacy of human rights obligations under the UN
Charter, the approach of the UN system and the wider
international community to addressing the tensions between drug
control and human rights remains ambiguous," said Richard
Elliott of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. "This is
inexcusable in the face of the egregious human rights abuses
perpetrated in the course of enforcing drug prohibition, which
in turn damages global efforts to prevent and treat HIV."
"Last week, INCB President Philip Emafo stated in the board's
2008 annual re****t that 'To do nothing [about drugs] is not an
option'," said Rick Lines of the International Harm Reduction
Association. "We are here today to state clearly that doing
nothing about the human rights abuses perpetrated in the name of
the drug war is also not an option. In this, the 60th
anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
CND member states and indeed the entire UN family must speak out
clearly that human rights must not be sacrificed on the altar of
drug control."
The new Thai government's repeated comments that it intends to
go back to former Prime Minister Thaksin ****nawatra's murderous
drug war of 2003, in which some 2,800 were killed, aroused
particular concern among the groups.
"As the UNODC has acknowledged, there are proven methods to
address drug use while protecting human rights. Murder is not
one of them," said Rebecca Schleifer, advocate with the HIV/AIDS
and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. "As a member of
the CND, Thailand must be held to account for its actions on
drugs, and pressure brought by the international community to
ensure that human rights violations are not repeated."
The Thai may be feeling the pressure. At the Monday afternoon
"side session" organized by the groups, not one but three
officials from the Thai government attended, all of them
expressing the view that policies have "good effects and bad,"
and inviting advocates to provide information to help them
improve policies. Time will tell whether it was a serious offer
and whether they can influence their government in a positive
direction if so.
Monday's re****t was only part of a broader onslaught directed at
the UN anti-drug bureaucracies and their seeming disdain for
human rights. Last week, in the wake of the release of the
INCB's 2007 Annual Re****t
(http://www.incb.org/pdf/annual-re****t/2007/en/press-kit.pdf),
which called for "pro****tionality" in the enforcement of drug
laws at the same time it called for criminalizing millions of
people who chew coca leaf, that organization was critiqued in a
response
(http://www.idpc.info/php-bin/do***ents/IDPC_Response2INCB_AnnRpt07_EN.pdf)
by the International Drug Policy Consortium
(http://www.idpc.info),
a global network of national and
international groups specializing in issues relating to drug
use, legal or illegal.
While the consortium congratulated the INCB for its call for
pro****tionality and a slight retreat in its resistance to harm
reduction, it warned that such good news "will be rendered
meaningless if the Board does not consistently reflect these
principles in its ongoing work with national governments and
other UN agencies."
The consortium also harshly criticized the INCB for its call for
the banning of the growing and consumption of coca. "Of greater
concern is the continuing intransigence shown towards the issue
of indigenous use of coca products in Bolivia," the consortium's
response said. "Where there is an unresolved inconsistency
within the drug control conventions, and between drug control
and other international obligations and treaties, the role of
the INCB should be to highlight these dilemmas and help
governments to find a resolution, instead of issuing rigid and
non-universal declarations."
The British drug charity DrugScope
(http://www.drugscope.org.uk/),
a member of the consortium,
called on the INCB to do more. "Drug users are vilified and
marginalized worldwide," said Harry Shapiro, the group's
director of communications. "Some nations feel that any action
against them is justified, including murder. We are encouraged
that the INCB recognizes this is unacceptable and that a balance
must be struck between the enforcement of drug laws and the
human rights and civil liberties of those with serious
problems."
The INCB must match its actions to its words, Shapiro said. "But
DrugScope and the International Drug Policy Consortium feel that
the INCB, from their position of international authority, must
follow their condemnation of human rights abuses through to its
logical conclusion, The INCB must offer public criticism of
particular countries with the worst human rights record in this
area."
Instead of UN anti-drug agencies sticking up for human rights,
they have now become the objects of criticism themselves. The
official international prohibitionist drug policy consensus may
be holding at the UN, but it is clearly fraying, and civil
society is no longer willing to sit quietly in the face of
injustice, whether in Bangkok or Baltimore, Rio or Russia.
(Look for in-person re****ts on the UN summit next week.)
================
2. Medical Marijuana at the Statehouse: Prospects for 2008
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/527/medical_marijuana_bills_statehouse_2008
A dozen years after California voters ushered in the age of
legal medical marijuana by sup****ting Proposition 215, the legal
use of the herb for medicinal purposes has spread to 11 other
states -- Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New
Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wa****ngton -- but in
recent years, progress has been excruciatingly slow.
The last statewide initiative to go to voters failed in 2006 in
South Dakota -- the only state where voters have rejected an
initiative legalizing medical marijuana -- and last year, it
took Herculean efforts by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) to
revive and rescue the medical marijuana bill there, making the
Land of Enchantment the only state to be added to the list of
medical marijuana states in 2007. (Rhode Island legislators, who
had passed a sunsetted bill in 2006, made it permanent last
year.)
This year, serious efforts to pass medical marijuana laws at the
state house are underway in several more states, with most of
the efforts being run by local groups backed by either the
Marijuana Policy Project (http://www.mpp.org)
or the Drug Policy
Alliance (http://www.drugpolicy.org).
Here's a look at the
states where there has been or will be action at the state house
on medical marijuana:
ALABAMA: A medical marijuana bill was introduced last week by
Rep. Laura Hall (D), but has yet to be assigned a bill number.
This will mark the second year in a row that Alabama legislators
have had a medical marijuana bill before them. There will be
hearings this year, said Loretta Nall, executive director of
Alabamians for Compassionate Care
(http://www.compassionate-care.org),
the local group
coordinating the effort to pass the bill.
One of those who will testify is Jacki Phillips, whose son,
Michael Phillips, had testified in sup****t of medical marijuana
in the past. Michael Phillips, who throughout his life suffered
from seizures related to brain tumors, died last December in a
New Orleans hotel room during the DPA conference.
"I'm going to tell those lawmakers that the system killed my
son," said Phillips. "I truly believe that if he could have
gotten the marijuana and it had been regulated like other
seizure medicines, he would be alive today. I'm not asking them
to legalize it for potheads," she said, "I'm a Southern Baptist
and I believe God gave you a brain to use, but using marijuana
for medical purposes would help a lot of people."
Marijuana didn't stop Michael Phillips' seizures, his mother
said, "but it gave him the chance to function on a normal level
for a period of time." When he smoked marijuana, she said, he
would still have seizures, but their frequency and intensity was
greatly reduced.
CONNECTICUT: After seeing a medical marijuana bill pass the
legislature there last year only to be vetoed by Gov. Jodi Rell
(R), activists there have found little traction on the issue
this year as the legislature debates other criminal justice and
drug policy issues.
"We were emboldened last year and then deeply disappointed that
people still essentially have to commit a crime to get access to
medicine," DPA policy director Gabriel Sayegh told the Hartford
Business Journal (http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/news4689.html)
earlier this month. But despite little progress this year,
"there is no doubt we are going to continue with this," he
vowed.
ILLINOIS: A medical marijuana bill, SB 2865
(http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?GA=95&DocTypeID=SB&DocNum=2865&GAID=9&SessionID=51&LegID=37610),
has passed committee votes and is now headed to the Senate
floor, but its House companion bill, HB 5938, lost a committee
vote this week. Still, that doesn't mean the measure is dead.
"Unlike many states, losing a committee vote doesn't kill your
bill," said MPP's Mirken, who spent part of this week at the
state capitol in Springfield accompanying patients as they
lobbied legislators.
MPP and local reform groups IDEAL (www.idealreform.org)
(Illinois Drug Education and Legislative Reform) and Illinois
Compassion Action Network (http://www.illinoiscan.com)
are
keeping the pressure on. This week, MPP released a poll
(http://www.mpp.org/news/illinois-voters-sup****t.html)
showing
68% sup****t for medical marijuana in the state.
KANSAS: The first effort at passing a medical marijuana bill in
Kansas, sup****ted by the Kansas Compassionate Care Coalition
(http://www.ksccc.org)
and former Republican Attorney General
Robert Stephan, ended a couple of weeks ago, bottled up in
committee by a hostile committee chair. While disappointing,
that is hardly surprising, given the torturous legislative
process facing any new bill.
Kansans should not be disheartened that they did not achieve
victory in their first try, said MPP's Mirken. "It has been a
multi-year struggle in all the states that have passed these
laws," he said. "It's no surprise that it will take more than
one year in Kansas."
MINNESOTA: Last year, a medical marijuana bill passed the state
Senate, but died of inaction in the House in the face of veto
threats from Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty. But MPP and local
affiliate Minnesotans for Compassionate Care
(http://www.minnesotacares.org)
are again working with friendly
legislators. A Republican House member, Rep. Chris DeLaForest,
is cosponsoring a House bill this year.
Minnesota's is a two-year legislative session, so that means
only a House bill must pass this year, provided it is congruent
with the already passed Senate bill.
"We are sitting in the House waiting for it to be brought up,"
said Mirken. "We're hoping it will pass and the governor will
see the light."
NEW JERSEY: For the fourth consecutive year, a medical marijuana
bill, AB 804
(http://www.njleg.state.nj.us:80/2008/Bills/A1000/804_I1.HTM)
has been introduced by Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer) and
a companion bill has been introduced in the state Senate. DPA's
New Jersey office is working the legislature, but there seems
little likelihood the Senate will act.
"The Senate has always been the hold-up," said Ken Wolski, RN,
executive officer of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana-New
Jersey (http://www.cmmnj.org).
"Although Gov. Corzine has said
he would sign a bill if it gets to his desk, the Assembly
doesn't really want to mess with it if the Senate won't move on
it, so here we are."
NEW YORK: A medical marijuana bill, SO4768
(http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=S04768),
initially
introduced last year was reintroduced in January. It passed the
Assembly last year, but was referred at that time to the Senate
Health Committee where it has languished ever since. Given the
turmoil in Albany in the wake of this week's resignation of
Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer, said MPP's Mirken, it will take
awhile for the dust to settle. "We're trying to figure out how
the Spizter follies will change the situation, " he said. "While
we have some hopes for New York, at this point, medical
marijuana is not on the top of anybody's agenda."
One optimistic sign, said Mirken, was that the new governor,
David Paterson, is on much better terms with Republican Senate
majority leader Joseph Bruno. Another is that, like Minnesota,
New York has a two-year session, so a bill will not have to
again pass the Assembly.
The medical marijuana movement has mowed its way through most of
the low-hanging fruit of the initiative states and now faces the
long, hard slog through the legislative process if it wants to
get more states on board. While it is less expensive to attempt
to win in the legislature than at the ballot box, it is also
much more difficult and complicated.
"A lot of politicians are needlessly skittish about the politics
of this," said Mirken. "If it were just a vote on the merits, it
would pass today. Everywhere, we can produce polling numbers to
show these guys a medical marijuana vote is not going to hurt
them, but there is a deeply ingrained fear of being ****trayed as
soft on drugs, and that's very difficult to overcome. It's a
real struggle," he said.
When pressed on where victories might come this year, Mirken was
careful. "I'd say there was a fighting chance in Illinois,
Minnesota, and New York, but in an election year, politicians
are more timid than usual," he offered.
The real best shot this year, he said, is likely Michigan, where
an initiative has been approved for the November ballot.
================
later
bliss -- C O C O A Powered... (at california dot com)
--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco
"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cocoa that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.
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