Pubdate: Tue, 07 Aug 2001
Source: AlterNet (US Web)
Copyright: 2001 Independent Media Institute
Contact: http://www.alternet.org/discuss/
Website: http://www.alternet.org/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1451
Author: Kevin Nelson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption)

DRUG WAR BRIEFS: CORRUPTION DU JOUR

Seattle's D.A. Norm Maleng shuts down the Green Cross Patient (Marijuana) 
Co-op on the same day that Canada "legalizes" medical marijuana nationwide. 
In separate stories, the DEA, CIA, and UN Office of Drug Control are under 
scrutiny for a wide range of fraudulent activities.

July 29 -- UK's The Observer reports: Evidence of gross mismanagement and 
possible corruption at the Vienna headquarters of the United Nations agency 
fighting drug crime has been obtained by The Observer. It casts further 
doubt on the competence of the agency's executive director, Pino Arlacchi, 
a former Italian senator who made his name fighting the Mafia. His contract 
will not be renewed when it expires in February.

Arlacchi has already been bitterly criticised for his leadership of the 
agency, where staff morale is at rock bottom.

August 1 -- Seattle Police shut down the Green Cross Patient Co-op. The 
Seattle Times reports: On Joanna McKee's West Seattle garage door is a big 
sign: "CLOSED." Beside it, she posted the "cease and desist" letter she 
received Friday from the Seattle Police Department. McKee has been openly 
helping patients get marijuana for nearly a decade, providing what she 
calls "a community service" to help qualified patients avoid buying pot on 
the street.

Police have long been suspicious that patients -- and those who help them 
get marijuana, such as McKee -- are simply drug users and suppliers.

Both the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office and local federal 
prosecutors concede that state law doesn't protect organizations like Green 
Cross. "We've always had a pretty consistent discussion that what they're 
doing doesn't fit within the statute," says Dan Satterberg, spokesman for 
Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng.

At the same time, prosecutors have said they have no interest in hauling 
sick people into court. In most places around the country, obtaining 
convictions of patients or those who help them has been difficult.

August 3 -- The Miami Herald reports: The Central Intelligence Agency paid 
the Peruvian intelligence organization run by fallen spymaster Vladimiro 
Montesinos $1 million a year for 10 years to fight drug trafficking, 
despite evidence that Montesinos was also in business with Colombian 
narcotraffickers, The Herald has learned.

New documents obtained by The Herald show how the CIA and State Department 
first cultivated Montesinos decades ago, and how the U.S. government 
maintained a relationship with him for a quarter-century despite warnings 
that he was working for both sides in the drug war.

August 4 -- The Winnipeg Free Press reports: This week, Canada became the 
first nation in the world to allow the legal use of marijuana to alleviate 
pain for the chronically and terminally ill. This should have been a useful 
thing, but Mr. Rock's administration -- he is more formally known as the 
federal minister of health -- has surrounded this innovation with 
regulations that have left no one happy.

Canadians who claim that they need marijuana for its medical properties, 
usually to control nausea or pain, are unhappy for several reasons. The new 
regulations, these critics claim, will actually make it more difficult for 
sick people to obtain marijuana than it has been since the courts decreed 
that they were entitled to use it medicinally. Anyone who is not terminally 
ill will require two doctors to vouch for the fact that no other 
painkillers will do the job. Since codeine, morphine and heroin are all 
legally available painkillers, that may require some stretch of medical 
opinion.

August 4 -- Pennsylvania's The Inquirer reports: The new head of the U.S. 
Drug Enforcement Agency has pledged to end the agency's use of inflated 
drug-arrest and performance statistics and to focus on growing drug 
problems in rural America. Rep. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican from Arkansas, 
was confirmed to the post this week. In an interview, he said that he hoped 
to lift America's confidence that the drug war can succeed.

Recent Inquirer Washington Bureau stories disclosed that the DEA had no 
documents to support hundreds of arrests claimed in the agency's latest 
36-nation Caribbean antidrug dragnet. Hundreds of other arrests reported by 
the DEA turned out to be routine marijuana busts by local police.

Of $30.2 million in assets claimed to have been seized from drug 
traffickers in the operation, the Washington Bureau found that $30 million 
had been seized before the operation began.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager