In November 1996, the voters of California passed Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act. That law permitted patients throughout the state to use, possess and grow cannabis and their caregivers to possess, grow and provide cannabis on the recommendation of a physician. One month later, in response to what the federal government saw as an erosion of cannabis prohibition in California, then-drug czar Barry McCaffrey held a press conference to discuss the new law. One of his props was a large flip-chart at the top of which was printed: "Dr. Mikuriya's Medicine." Below it was a long list of ailments for which Dr. Tod Mikuriya, a respected Berkeley, Calif. psychiatrist and co-author and medical advisor of Prop 215, was alleged to have claimed cannabis was beneficial. Along with glaucoma, cancer and AIDS were zingers like "Recovering Forgotten Memories," and "Writer's Cramp," that made the whole list suspicious. [continues 2594 words]
Dr. Tod Mikuriya believes the state is out to get him for prescribing medical pot. Critics say it's not that simple. (Berkeley, CA) Mikuriya has recommended pot more than ten thousand times. Dr. Tod Mikuriya is a true believer. He views his medical practice as a platform from which to help reestablish the medicinal status marijuana enjoyed before the reefer madness of the late 1930s. "It had been available to clinicians for one hundred years until it was taken off the market in 1938," the wide-eyed Mikuriya said in a recent interview. "I'm fighting to restore cannabis." [continues 1472 words]
The Government Has Yet to Prove That Its $200 Million-A-Year Media Campaign Is Effective, Leading to All Sorts of Carping The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy on Oct. 4 chose a new advertising agency, Foote Cone & Belding, to lead its $200 million-per-year anti-drug advertising effort aimed at parents and children. The previous agency, Ogilvy & Mather, was accused of overbilling the government, but that's hardly the only controversy dogging the government's six-year-old anti-drug ad effort. [continues 954 words]
The decade-long debate over providing clean needles to intravenous drug users in New Jersey has hinged on a pair of questions: Would needle-exchange programs save lives by preventing the spread of the virus that causes AIDS? Or would they cost lives by encouraging drug abuse? New Jersey is one of only two states (Delaware is the other) that do not offer some form of legal access to needles. But beginning tomorrow, state lawmakers will introduce fast-tracked bills to change that -- with support from Gov. James E. McGreevey, who says he wants to sign the legislation before his planned departure on Nov. 15. [continues 1277 words]
This happens. Then that happens. Can we conclude that this caused that? Of course not. Does killing turkeys cause it to snow? One event following another is no proof that the first caused the second. Women won the right to vote in 1920. Since then we have had six wars, a Great Depression and the invention of the cell phone. Oh Lord! See what this suffrage hath wrought. Or not. Did women vote for war or economic distress? Aside for a tendency to be more progressive, women vote pretty much the same as men in their community. [continues 745 words]
If Kerry makes good on his promise to review research on medical marijuana when he takes office, he'll be amazed at what has been learned in the last several years. John Kerry's acceptance speech for the Democratic presidential nomination ended with a series of "what if's": "What if we find a breakthrough to cure Parkinson's, diabetes, Alzheimer's and AIDS?" he wondered aloud, to the cheers of the crowd. Innovative treatments for these diseases, and many others, may be closer than Kerry knows, and it won't take fetal tissue to find them. If Kerry makes good on his promise to review research on medical marijuana when he takes office, he'll be amazed at what has been learned in the last several years. [continues 944 words]
Effective youth drug-prevention programs and cost-effective treatment services need to be the focus of the ongoing war on drugs, a former U.S. drug czar said Monday. Barry McCaffrey said community anti-drug programs are especially important and called for more emphasis on prevention and treatment, instead of enforcement, in front of roughly 1,000 substance-abuse service professionals at the annual Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse's drug policy conference. The commission provides funding for prevention, intervention and treatment services through contracts with about 200 community organizations that serve more than 750,000 Texans each year, according to the organization's Web site. [continues 563 words]
Spy Czar Plan Provides No Reforms Proposals to Create a New Intelligence Post Would Simply Add to Bureacratic Hurdles Barry McCaffrey is a retired four-star Army general, aggressive, outspoken and tough as nails. When he retired from the Army, President Bill Clinton appointed him the nation's drug czar - overseeing the 50-odd federal agencies involved in the "war on drugs." The thinking when the office was established in 1988 had been: Let's create a job that doesn't actually run any of these agencies but has the responsibility of melding them into a coherent war. The drug czar was given authority to "certify" the drug interdiction, rehabilitation or prevention budgets scattered around the government. Most of the money that came under the war on drugs was controlled by the Pentagon. [continues 662 words]
High Court Should OK Patient Use. Eight years ago, 56 percent of California voters approved Proposition 215, allowing sick people to use marijuana for medical purposes when approved by a physician. In all, 35 states have approved similar legislation. The only problem is that the federal government still outlaws the use of marijuana, for any reason, which has created enormous legal headaches for sick individuals, doctors and law enforcement. Fortunately, the legal Catch-22 will be addressed this winter when the U.S. Supreme Court at last considers whether the federal government can prosecute sick people who use marijuana on the advice of their doctor. [continues 488 words]
Advocates For Decriminalization Think Voters Will OK Medical Use When Chuck Ream first began suffering severe stomach pains in 1968, doctors gave him antacids. As the pain grew worse - endoscopies would later reveal gastritis, ulcers and lack of a proper membrane in the duodenum - he was prescribed barbiturates, tranquilizers and more antacids. They worked, sort of, at first. But when the pain worsened again, a friend suggested he try smoking marijuana. "I tried it, and my stomach untightened, and I could breathe a little bit," he said. "It didn't solve all my problems, but it allowed me to function and return to school." [continues 1463 words]
What do Rodney Dangerfield, Michelle Phillips, Bill Maher, Jesse Ventura, Frances McDormand and Jennifer Aniston have in common? They've come clean about pot and they want others to as well. Comedian Rodney Dangerfield's new autobiography, It's Not Easy Being Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs (HarperCollins), contains surprising news: he smokes marijuana. Dangerfield, 82, says he's been smoking pot for nearly 50 years, joking, "I was a hippie long before hippies were born." [continues 1730 words]
Just as the administration's Iraqi mission has been damaged by the scandal of prisoner abuse and other failures, the policy in Afghanistan has been undercut by the rebirth of the Afghani poppy, the main ingredient in heroin. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage admitted during a hearing last month that last year was the ''biggest year ever -- for poppy cultivation and growth in Afghanistan. So you would be wrong if you don't hold us responsible.'' The future looks even worse: A U.N. report says that two out of every three Afghan farmers plan to increase their poppy crop in 2004. [continues 548 words]
Driven in large measure by harsh drug laws, our prison population has grown from 200,000 to two million over the past 30 years. Now, the tide is turning and, by legislation or referendum, one state after another is changing these laws. But not New York, where the hardline Rockefeller laws remain the nation's most draconian. The laws enjoy little public or political support. Just about all interested parties -- legislators, advocates of various persuasions, and all sectors of the criminal justice system -- favor change. Most favor putting drug law offenders in treatment rather than prison. But there is widespread disagreement about how to go about this. How far should sentences be reduced? What should be done about offenders now in prison? Who (judges or prosecutors) should have the last word about where a defendant goes? [continues 319 words]
With two federal watchdog agencies freeing the White House drug czar to overtly influence state ballot initiatives, the Senate is poised to reauthorize this anti-democratic exercise for the next five years - the wheels greased by a ten-year total of $4 billion in taxpayer-funded advertising designed to sway the votes of those who pay for it. The General Accounting Office recently declared the Bush administration's $22-million multimedia ad campaign touting new Medicare drug benefits to be marred by "omissions and other weaknesses" though not downright illegal. The GAO has also agreed to examine whether the administration's video news releases with fake reporters promoting the Medicare changes violate laws against government "covert propaganda." [continues 2542 words]
SARATOGA -- Company Makes Key Hires As It Readies To Roll Out Hair-Based Test DrugRisk Solutions LLC isn't moving into its new home for another few months. But the company already has made two powerful acquisitions: Patrick Carpenter and Harry Puglisi Jr. Carpenter, 44, is the former laboratory operations director at Quest Diagnostics Inc.'s hair-testing lab in Las Vegas. Before that, he reported to Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former President Bill Clinton's drug czar. Carpenter is DrugRisk's new director of laboratories. [continues 630 words]
The beauty of Jefferson's marketplace of ideas is that it opens our society to all voices and all arguments, presuming the most persuasive will rise to the top. But those who promote the War on Drugs find this a dangerous concept. Drug reform makes too much sense and in recent years has been too compelling to voters. Already, seven states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana through voter initiatives (and two more states through legislation) and a recent Gallup poll shows that 74 percent of Americans are on that side of the issue. [continues 704 words]
The beauty of Thomas Jefferson's marketplace of ideas is that it opens our society to all voices and all arguments, presuming the most persuasive will rise to the top. But those who promote the War on Drugs find this a dangerous concept. Drug reform makes too much sense and in recent years has been too compelling to voters. Already, seven states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana through voter initiatives (and two more states through legislation), and a recent Gallup poll shows that 74 percent of Americans are on that side of the issue. [continues 706 words]
The beauty of Jefferson's marketplace of ideas is that it opens our society to all voices and all arguments, presuming the most persuasive will rise to the top. But those who promote the War on Drugs find this a dangerous concept. Drug reform makes too much sense and in recent years has been too compelling to voters. Already, seven states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana through voter initiatives (and two more states through legislation) and a recent Gallup poll shows that 74 percent of Americans are on that side of the issue. [continues 706 words]
EVERETT -- The stereotypical drug user is no longer a middle-aged man with rotting teeth and a lengthy criminal rap sheet, said former national drug czar Barry McCaffrey. Instead, it's becoming teens like those in Snohomish County and other parts of the country. McCaffrey, retired Army general and director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy during the Clinton administration, spent most of yesterday trying to steer the very people in that at-risk category away from drug use during the third annual Snohomish County Youth Meth Summit. The summit, held at the Everett Events Center, was sponsored by the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office and local anti-drug group Lead on America. [continues 373 words]
EVERETT -- Former national drug czar and retired general Barry McCaffrey will headline this year's Snohomish County Youth Meth Summit on Feb. 5 at the Everett Events Center. McCaffrey, who stepped down as the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in January 2001, said he will share his anti-drug message with students during the six-hour summit. "Methamphetamine is the worst thing that has happened to America, period, on the drug issue," he said yesterday. "It's a building crescendo. [continues 561 words]
