DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 152 January 3, 2000 NY Times Focuses On Reform Efforts But Misses The Point MAKE WRITING AT LEAST ONE LETTER A WEEK A NEW YEARS RESOLUTION! --- TO SUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP, OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL SEE http://www.drugsense.org/hurry.htm TO UNSUBSCRIBE SEE http://www.drugsense.org/unsub.htm PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 152 January 3, 2000 As more and more people accept the fact that the drug war has been a counterproductive failure, a few news reporters still seem baffled at the notion. Some leaders of the drug policy reform movement were featured in an article in the New York Times yesterday, and those interviewed for the story articulated their points well. Unfortunately, instead of focusing on the real reasons for challenging bad policy, reporter Christopher Wren attempted to assist anti-drug zealots in their efforts to portray the reform movement as a sneaky conspiracy. Lindesmith Center Director Ethan Nadelmann gave a fine definition of the people who work at drug policy reform: "The core is the people who to my mind get it, the people who connect the dots ... We believe that the war on drugs is a fundamental evil in our society." But in the very next paragraph, reporter Wren characterizes reformers' efforts as, "The crusade to make drugs socially respectable..." Please write a letter to the Times in order to let Wren and editors know that given the horrible results of the war on drugs, there should be no questions about the reasons people want to end prohibition. If we keep up our efforts at education, maybe Wren will be able to connect the dots by himself some day. Thanks for your effort and support. WRITE A LETTER TODAY It's not what others do it's what YOU do PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID (Letter, Phone, fax etc.) Please post a copy your letter or report your action to the sent letter list () if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to Your letter will then be forwarded to the list with so others can learn from your efforts and be motivated to follow suit This is VERY IMPORTANT as it is the only way we have of gauging our impact and effectiveness. CONTACT INFO Source: New York Times (NY) Contact: EXTRA CREDIT- A shorter version of this Christopher Wren OPED appeared on Sunday, 2 Jan, in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel (FL). Please consider sending them a LTE also, but remember that the last eight paragraphs as shown below did not appear in the Florida newspaper. See: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n005.a05.html Contact: Feedback: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/services/letters_editor.htm Pubdate: Sun, 02 Jan 2000 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company Contact: Website: http://www.nytimes.com/ Forum: http://www10.nytimes.com/comment/ Author: Christopher S. Wren Cited: Lindesmith Center: http://www.lindesmith.org/ NORML: http://www.norml.org/ Families in Action: http://www.emory.edu/NFIA/ Drug Policy Foundation: http://www.dpf.org/ American Civil Liberties Union: http://www.aclu.org/ McCaffrey's Testimony: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n636.a02.html Bookmark: Link to items about George Soros: http://www.mapinc.org/soros.htm SMALL BUT FORCEFUL COALITION WORKS TO COUNTER U.S. WAR ON DRUGS When voters in Maine went to the polls in November and endorsed the use of marijuana as a medicine, it was more than a victory for cancer patients and others who say marijuana will help relieve their pain. For a small coalition of libertarians, liberals, humanitarians and hedonists, the vote was another step forward in a low-profile but sophisticated crusade to end the nation's criminal laws against marijuana and other psychoactive drugs. Using polls, focus groups and advertising, the coalition has selected and promoted causes that might arouse sympathy among Americans, like giving clean syringes to heroin users to prevent the spread of AIDS, or softening tough penalties for drug use. The most successful has been medicinal marijuana, which has been endorsed by the District of Columbia and seven states. What brought together the disparate elements of the coalition, however, is a far broader cause: changing the critical way that Americans think about drugs. Proponents say they want to end a war on drugs that has packed prisons, offered addicts little treatment and contributed to the spread of AIDS. Some want to go further and drop criminal penalties for personal drug use, or even make drugs legal. The term they have carefully crafted for their goal is "harm reduction": reducing the harm caused by those people who cannot or will not stop using drugs. "We accept drugs are here to stay," said Ethan A. Nadelmann, director of the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy center set up in New York with money donated by the billionaire George Soros. "There never has been a drug-free society," Mr. Nadelmann said. "We must learn how to live with drugs so they cause the least possible harm and the best possible good." Critics say the agenda is more ominous: the legalization of marijuana and other drugs. At a Congressional hearing in June, the White House director of national drug policy, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, warned of "a carefully camouflaged, well-funded, tightly knit core of people whose goal is to legalize drug use in the United States." Sue Rusche, director of Families in Action, a coalition in Atlanta working to help parents prevent children from using drugs, accused Mr. Nadelmann and his supporters of systematically distorting the picture of what drugs do. "Yes, we're concerned about children, but we're concerned about everybody," said Ms. Rusche, who likened Mr. Nadelmann to the tobacco industry. "He denies that drugs have the capacity to hurt people, and takes no responsibility for the consequences." Mr. Nadelmann describes his position differently. "Drugs are not bad," he said. "Drugs are good, bad or indifferent, depending on how you use them." The movement's supporters range beyond the Lindesmith Center and other efforts financed by Mr. Soros. Supporters include marijuana-smokers represented by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or Norml, libertarians who argue that personal drug use is nobody else's business, and old-fashioned liberals who castigate the government's campaign against drugs as worse than the problem. "The core is the people who to my mind get it, the people who connect the dots," Mr. Nadelmann said. "We believe that the war on drugs is a fundamental evil in our society." The crusade to make drugs socially respectable has no precedent in the United States, said Dr. David F. Musto, a medical historian at the Yale School of Medicine and the author of "The American Disease: Origins of Narcotics Control" (Oxford University Press). "You have these groups funded by wealthy individuals that are a constant critic of drug policy, and these groups use very sophisticated marketing techniques," he said. Surveys show that most Americans still oppose making illicit drugs legal. While voters have been tolerant of letting ill people smoke marijuana, a Gallup poll this year reported that 69 percent of respondents opposed making marijuana legal for everyone. Mark A. R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Los Angeles, said, "When you look at all these medical marijuana initiatives, they pass by big margins, but the governors and legislators go the other way." Because constituents expect their politicians to be hard-nosed, Professor Kleiman said, "a legislator who votes for medical marijuana could lose votes from people who voted for medical marijuana." Mr. Nadelmann said he commissioned a poll to learn whether voters would support personal cultivation of marijuana; 65 percent of those sampled thought that growing marijuana should remain a crime. The result of this research into public attitudes has been the deliberately vague idea of harm reduction. By casting the issue in friendlier terms that resonate across the political spectrum, crusaders like Mr. Nadelmann say, they hope to induce Americans to tolerate, if not embrace, the elimination of criminal penalties against marijuana -- and as a few see it, the eventual legalization of all psychoactive drugs. Critics call the medicinal marijuana issue a stalking-horse for drug legalization. "My guess is the real agenda is to promulgate marijuana as a benign substance outside the boundaries of conventional medicine," General McCaffrey said. Mr. Nadelmann did not contradict him. "Will it help lead toward marijuana legalization?" he said. "I hope so." But he said that reports of his support for harder drugs have quoted him out of context. Mr. Nadelmann has advised the campaign putting medicinal marijuana on state ballots, which is spearheaded by a group calling itself Americans for Medical Rights, with no mention of marijuana. The campaign's director, Bill Zimmerman, explained, "You pick the name with a view toward winning support for the organization." Not all critics of government drug policy want to make illicit drugs legal. Some assert that prohibition has not stopped drug use. Others say that money would be better spent treating addicts who commit crimes rather than locking them up. Mr. Nadelmann wants to enlist such people in his cause of repealing all penalties for drug use. "What we reformers do is to use these coalitions on one issue to educate our allies about the broader implications of the drug war," he said. Rob Stewart, a senior policy analyst for the Drug Policy Foundation, another group in Washington supported by Mr. Soros, said that lifting criminal penalties for marijuana use would be sufficient. Writing in the group's newsletter, he explained, "decriminalization makes the point that adults should not be arrested for using marijuana as they would use a martini." Mr. Stewart described the Drug Policy Foundation as "agnostic" about other illicit drugs. But its founder, Arnold S. Trebach, told journalists in 1997 that everything from cocaine and heroin to steroids should be freely available. Mr. Nadelmann objects to stigmatizing recreational drug use. "People shall not be discriminated against based on the substances they consume," he said. "The extension of the notion of equality is going to have to include drug users." The American Civil Liberties Union also endorses the right to consume drugs. Ira Glasser, its director, said this year, "The A.C.L.U.'s position is basically that criminal prohibition is inappropriate in matters that involve a person's own behavior." Mr. Glasser is also chairman of the Drug Policy Foundation. Holding both posts, he said, poses no conflict of interest. Mr. Nadelmann said that a fresh initiative on medicinal marijuana would be voted on next year in Colorado, where an earlier referendum was declared illegal, and in Nevada, where the proposal must be approved twice. Other states that have passed such initiatives, he said, would be encouraged to get involved in producing and distributing marijuana for medicinal purposes. SAMPLE LETTER (sent) To the Editor of the New York Times: Throughout the story "Small but Forceful Coalition Works to Counter U.S. War on Drugs" (Jan. 2) anti-drug leaders question the motives of anyone involved in the movement against the drug war. At the same time, the motives of anti-drug leaders themselves are never questioned. The results of the drug war have been devastating. It's time to ask people like drug czar Barry McCaffrey whether their support for current policy isn't just a cover for support of the actual effects of the drug war. Since the drug war was initiated levels of drug use have fluctuated, but the policies have consistently helped to multiply prison populations, erode civil liberties and spread disease. These devastating consequences have been so consistent, I wonder if they weren't the original goals? Stephen Young IMPORTANT: Always include your address and telephone number Please note: If you choose to use this letter as a model please modify it at least somewhat so that the paper does not receive numerous copies of the same letter and so that the original author receives credit for his/her work. ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing efforts 3 Tips for Letter Writers http://www.mapinc.org/3tips.htm Letter Writers Style Guide http://www.mapinc.org/style.htm Prepared by Stephen Young - http://home.att.net/~theyoungfamily Focus Alert Specialist

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