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WASTED LIVES

Marijuana Arrests Are Skyrocketing.  The War On Drugs Has Increasingly Turned On Casual Pot Smokers: College Students, Petty Dealers And Even The Seriously Ill.  A Few Nascent Grass-Roots Organizations Hope To Change That. 

About one morning a month is really, really bad.  For 38-year-old John Precup of Mansfield, first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 15 years ago, just the act of waking up can be a frightening adventure in pain and suffering.  Most days he gets up feeling pretty much normal, but on those mornings he doesn't, it's ugly. 

"I wake up sick as a dog, huffing, gagging, trying not to puke," he relates.  "I never know when to expect it, but when it hits, it's pretty scary." Precup keeps two things by his bedside: a bucket, for when the nausea overcomes him, and a loaded pipe.  Three or four puffs of marijuana, he says, and the change is almost immediate.  Like magic, the retching and wooziness fades and his shaky equilibrium is restored. 

The pot even gives him back his appetite; without it he loses all desire to eat and starts shedding weight at an alarming rate.  When initially hospitalized back in '86, John remembers, he lost 15 pounds in 10 days before discovering the miraculous power of marijuana.  Even now, on his rough mornings, he can't even hold down a sip of water until he's fired up a bowl, rendering the anti-nausea pills his doctor prescribes effectively useless. 

"When I first tried the marijuana, I felt hunger for the first time since I felt sick.  It was amazing.  From that day forward, I've been a convert," he states, proudly pointing out that his weight's been stable ever since.  In fact, though his disease has progressed to where he needs a walker around the house and a wheelchair outside it, with the marijuana at hand to control his symptoms, he considers himself to be in "pretty good health overall."

But the very drug that has given John Precup back his well-being has also made him a criminal in the eyes of the state of Ohio. 

"I've never gone to jail myself, thank God," he says, "but I know plenty of people who have." It's a state of affairs that leaves him frustrated and outraged.  Alcohol and tobacco are legal despite the harm they cause, while pot, with its medicinal and recreational properties, remains strictly illegal.  In his eyes, this smacks of blatant hypocrisy.  And it hits many other Americans that way, too. 

From seriously ill patients who swear that marijuana is the only drug that effectively controls their symptoms, to college students stripped of financial aid for smoking a joint, to unlucky smokers and petty dealers caught up in the ever-expanding dragnet of our criminal justice system, America's relentless war on pot damages countless lives. 

Drug War, Race War

In 2000, 734,498 people were arrested across the United States for marijuana offenses, the largest yearly total in our nation's history, and more than twice the number busted in 1992.  Fully 88 percent of those arrests were for simple possession, rather than manufacture or sale.  Or to put it another way, new people are getting picked up at the rate of more than one every 45 seconds, and at any given time, 60,000 Americans are jailed on pot charges, more than one-quarter of those for possession. 

Unsurprisingly, minorities are hit the hardest by this culture of criminalization.  Blacks and Hispanics comprise 20 percent of the pot smokers in the U.S., but make up 58 percent of the marijuana offenders sentenced under federal law in 1997.  "The system chews up blacks and other minorities at much greater rates," confirms Allan St.  Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws ( NORML ) in Washington, D.C., who points to a study based on government data that compares racial differences in pot busts around the country. 

Shockingly, Cuyahoga County turned out to have the third-worst disparity between black and white possession arrest rates in 1995 when comparing core urban counties.  Blacks were 5.6 times more likely to get arrested for pot possession than whites, more than double the national average of 2.5 times.  And when adding non-core metro counties into the mix, Lake County had the worst racial disparity of the hundreds of counties included -- blacks there were arrested at nearly 20 times the rate of whites.  As St.  Pierre puts it, "It's the rust belt, running from Albany to Detroit, that comes out hottest as far as racial profiling goes."

In 2000, More People Were Busted For Pot Than At Any Other Time In U.S.  History. 

All of this arresting and jailing costs money, a lot of money.  NORML research claims that marijuana prohibition costs American taxpayers somewhere between $7.5 and $10 billion each year just for enforcement.  Furthermore, they found that after California decriminalized pot in 1976, that state alone saved $95.8 million annually on average. 

Despite -- or perhaps because of -- this budding arrest-and-incarceration industry, the American public increasingly rejects criminalizing pot smoking.  Sixty million Americans are estimated to have tried marijuana, and a national poll this November found that 61 percent of likely voters oppose arresting and jailing nonviolent marijuana offenders.  Plus, an annual national Gallup poll recently showed a jump to 36 percent support for overt legalization, after hovering for years around 25 percent.  "Now that support's passed the 33 percent mark, it's just a matter of time," John Hartman of Northcoast NORML, the organization's local chapter, predicts optimistically. 

Campus Backlash

Ohio State junior Russ Selkirk had a rude political awakening.  In many ways, the 20-year-old, who hails from a Cincinnati suburb, comes across as a typically bright, articulate college kid.  But now there's an overlay of serious, anti-drug-war activism atop his friendly, fun-loving demeanor.  Indeed, his politicization epitomizes the mushrooming backlash against the U.S.  government's harsh decision to bring the drug war directly into the lives of university students.  Since the 1998 passage of the Higher Education Act Amendments, federal financial aid is denied to many college kids, like Russ, convicted of pot possession and other drug offenses. 

At home during his freshman year, Russ went out with a friend for a little typical aimless cruising.  Parked outside a local bar, it seemed a good time to kick back and smoke a bowl.  All of a sudden, they were surprised by a knock on the window, and turned to see an undercover cop, badge in hand.  He searched them and their vehicle, but all he found were a few leftover pot flakes in a cellophane wrapper and their pipe, which contained marijuana residue. 

At the time, it didn't seem like that big a deal.  Russ wasn't even arrested -- after issuing a citation, the officer cut him loose ( of course, his parents found out, which was not so cool ).  A few weeks later, Russ appeared in court, where he pled no contest and got a fairly standard first possession sentence: he was fined $250, put on six months' probation, ordered to perform 20 hours of community service and had his license suspended, also for six months. 

He still felt he hadn't done anything wrong.  "To me, what I was convicted of was not a crime," he contends.  "There was no violent act, and no one was hurt." Nevertheless, he was glad the whole unpleasant incident would soon be behind him.  "I was sure as soon as I completed my probation, I'd be in the clear," he remembers. 

Jump forward four months to spring 2000, when Russ sat down with his mother to fill out his financial aid application.  That's when they saw the question about drug-offense convictions.  He didn't know about the law at the time, and though he answered truthfully, he still hoped to get the $4,500 in federal loans he needed. 

It was only later, when his request was denied, that he learned the true cost of his arrest.  He had a hard time believing it.  Logically, it didn't make sense to him.  "This law doesn't counteract drug use; it just took money from my mom and dad for my mistake," he says.  But unlike many others, Russ was lucky: his parents scraped together the funds to keep him in school. 

Unfortunately, Russ is just one of many.  This year, 36,809 college students will lose at least some of their financial aid for the next academic year.  According to the law, students lose federal aid for one year from the date of a first possession conviction, for two years for a distribution rap, and longer for second and third offenses.  Last year was the first that the federal government fully enforced the act.  Before then, those who left the conviction question blank still had their aid applications processed.  It was a good thing, too -- in 1999, more than 279,000 applicants didn't answer. 

This Year, 36,809 College Students Will Lose Their Financial Aid. 

That this is a misdirected policy of the drug war is an "obvious no-brainer" to Shawn Heller, the national director of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy ( SSDP ), an organization formed three years ago in response to the act.  As the law's stipulations have gone into effect, it has generated an explosion of resistance.  SSDP already boasts 200 chapters of up to 300 members each, 30 of which are at high schools; and 400 more are in the process of forming.  "This is the biggest movement on campus right now; nothing else comes even close," says Heller. 

Their collective power may already be making its influence felt.  About 100 campus governments have formally called for the act's repeal, including Ohio State's, as have major newspapers like The Washington Post .  Even new Drug Enforcement Administration ( DEA ) head Asa Hutchinson has expressed doubts about it, Heller reports.  And the push for the act's repeal -- it's up for recertification next year -- is prompting a spillover of student interest in other drug-war issues.  At the SSDP's last annual meeting, attendees called for the replacement of heavy-handed zero-tolerance policies with a more compassionate harm-reduction model emphasizing education and treatment, and committed themselves to spurring public attention on the controversial U.S.  involvement in Colombia's civil war. 

It's all part and parcel of a growing awareness of the fundamental flaws of the drug war on the part of today's youth, Heller argues.  "We're the D.A.R.E.  [Drug Abuse Resistance Education] generation that grew up hearing all this propaganda that criminalization is the only just response to drug use, but we're realizing that's just not true, and are starting to ask tough questions about the ramifications of altering our drug policies," he says, adding that SSDP plans to hold a mass gathering near Columbus in May.  "This could blow up into something big."

Punishing God's Flower Children

In Ohio, possession of small amounts of marijuana is not supposed to result in jail time; less than 200 grams is considered a minor misdemeanor.  But recent statutory changes and disingenuous legal interpretations have afforded gung-ho local prosecutors new opportunities to circumvent the spirit of the law, potentially turning low-key possession wrist-slaps into stiff prison sentences. 

In Cuyahoga County, even possession of far less than 200 grams can now conceivably send you up the river.  Local dealers often bag up their pot in sealed $10 "dime" bags, so a smoker who buys $40 worth is given four such bags, usually wrapped up together in a larger, outer bag.  But now, prosecutors are sometimes charging those caught with several dimes bundled together with "preparation for sale," a felony, rather than with minor misdemeanor possession, even when there's no indication they're dealers and the total amount of marijuana is very small. 

Attorney Bradley Greene, a lawyer with Friedman and Gilbert, noticed the shift several months ago, when he was defending a 19-year-old Cleveland woman who was caught with six dimes bundled together.  "There was no evidence she prepared the drugs that way herself," Greene explains.  "There's a huge distinction between smokers and sellers, but now they can classify practically everyone as a dealer."

NORML's Hartman says the change has been in effect since 1997, when the Ohio legislature closed a supposed "loophole" in the law.  Prior to that time, those caught with small amounts of pot, even if they had sold a little, were thought to not deserve the much harsher trafficking penalties.  But that assumption is a thing of the past, Hartman says, and as a result, even casual smokers run real risks if they're caught with several bags in their possession. 

Of course, drug dealers, even the penny-ante variety, have always run the risk of a trip to the pokey.  Take the case of Ron Gilbert.  His life partner Mimi vividly remembers the day in August 1999 the cops came banging on her door and took him away for selling a few ounces of what she defiantly refers to as "one of God's flowers."

"Now They Can Classify Practically Everyone As A Dealer."

Together 13 years, they were living a quiet but fulfilling life at their place outside Warren.  Ron built a thriving landscaping business from scratch, and served his community by organizing regular community clothing drives.  He was a founding member of the Trumbull Peace Council, which is now defunct without him, Mimi says. 

And yes, she concedes, Ron dealt a little pot, an ounce or two here and there, mostly to friends.  "Ron never hurt a soul in his life," Mimi contends.  "You've got drunk drivers out there who kill people, yet Ron was treated like the devil incarnate" -- all because he sold four ounces of weed to a guy who turned out to be a crack dealer looking to get on the cops' good side, she claims.  As a result, in March 2000, Ron got 22 months in the pen. 

Though he'll be released in a few weeks, Ron's absence has already been devastating.  The landscaping business collapsed without him.  Even worse, the authorities confiscated more than $20,000 from the business account, the entirety of the family's savings, even though Mimi charges that "we have records to show where every single penny in that account came from."

Mimi was emotionally and financially devastated, though she eventually found work with John Hartman, the Northcoast NORML head who also owns three area NORML stores.  He gave her a job at his Warren shop. 

Hartman says stories like Ron's are all too common.  While he believes the average smoker in Ohio is no longer likely to be locked up anymore, a lot of people still get arrested, and the prisons remain packed with small-time growers and sellers.  "Remember, 200 grams is not really a whole lot of cultivated marijuana, just a few plants," he says. 

There are some signs of incipient change in Ohio, however, most notably the ongoing attempt by For a Better Ohio to pass a citywide ballot initiative in Columbus that aims to eliminate criminal sanctions for all marijuana misdemeanors.  According to Kenny Schweickart, a recent poll showed 48 percent support for FBO's initiative, indicating a real chance of passage if it does get before the voters in May. 

Not so long ago, efforts to reform marijuana laws remained the exclusive province of Deadheads, libertarians and others outside the political and cultural mainstream.  Sure, all sorts of people smoked marijuana in large numbers, but most were content to do so privately, behind closed doors, choosing political quiescence in exchange for personal privacy and freedom.  But that's a tradeoff that's becoming increasingly difficult to maintain, as the self-perpetuating drug war sends its tentacles deeper into the social fabric. 

The government's intrusion is having an effect, as the personal stories of blighted lives and pointless suffering related above suggest.  However, rather than wiping out pot use, the ongoing campaign to criminalize and stigmatize pot smokers is having an opposite effect.  A growing chorus of committed, organized activists have not only made inroads in educating the public about the corrosive social impact of marijuana prohibition, but also are learning how to use the idiosyncrasies of the political system, most notably the grass-roots power of the ballot initiative, to press for significant change.  Every day, between 400 and 700 people contact the national NORML office in Washington alone, says Allan St.  Pierre. 

But St.  Pierre readily admits that much work remains to be done.  "It's the people who are most affected by bad public policy who must be most invested in changing the law," he argues.  "A big part of that is the victim or consumer stepping forward to talk to tens of millions to say why they want the laws changed.  At some point, that's what will lead to major change."