The bare, dusty ground is littered with rusty blades and crack pipes. The area reeks of urine and garbage. At least three times a day, Charly Roue is drawn to this neighborhood, one of the most sordid in Paris, always following the same ritual. After panhandling tens of euros at cafes not far from some of the most popular tourist spots, he heads to the northern edge of the city, where he can buy crack cocaine at La Colline, or the Hill, France's largest open-air market for crack. [continues 1108 words]
Paris, France -- France's fight against cannabis, through tough laws to punish users, has long been a failure -- the French remain among Europe's biggest dope smokers. So will a change of strategy under President Emmanuel Macron have more success? The new centrist government is preparing to soften legislation, making users caught with cannabis liable for an instant fine of 150-200 euros ($180-250) instead of prosecution and the threat of a one-year jail term. The change was an election campaign pledge from Macron last year, justified on the grounds that it would reduce the time spent by the police and judiciary on criminal cases involving recreational smokers. [continues 604 words]
(AP) - France's health minister has said she wants to ban a cannabis-extract electronic cigarette that has been launched in France. Marisol Touraine told French radio she was opposed to the self-styled "e-joint," that was launched online Tuesday. She said it will encourage cannabis use and she will approach the courts to ban the product. Though cannabis is illegal in France, the French-Czech company KanaVape says its hemp vaporizer product is legal and does not contain the mind-altering THC substance found in marijuana. The company extracts the less potent molecule Cannabidiol from hemp, a variety of cannabis grown for fiber and seeds. "It will not make you 'high' but will help you relax," the company says. [end]
Study: Cardiovascular Events in Young Users Up Over a five-year period, a government-andated tracking system in France showed that physicians in that country treated 1,979 patients for serious health problems associated with the use of marijuana, and nearly 2 percent of those encounters were with patients suffering from cardiovascular problems, including heart attack, cardiac arrhythmia and stroke, as well as circulation problems in the arms and legs. In roughly a quarter of those cases, the study found, the patient died. [continues 178 words]
Smoking cannabis can cause potentially lethal damage to the heart and arteries of young and middle-aged adults, a study has found. Researchers in France, who looked at almost 2,000 patients with medical problems related to cannabis use, identified 35 serious instances of cardiovascular complications. Twenty heart attacks were recorded, as well as 10 cases involving arteries in the limbs, and three affecting blood vessels in the brain. Nine patients, about a quarter of the total, died. Most of the patients were male, with an average age of 34.3 years, and people with pre-existing cardiovascular weaknesses appeared to be more prone to the harmful effects of the drug. [continues 63 words]
SMOKING cannabis can cause potentially lethal damage to the heart and arteries of young and middle-aged adults, a study has found. Researchers in France who looked at almost 2,000 patients with medical problems related to cannabis use identified 35 serious instances of cardiovascular complications. Twenty heart attacks were recorded, as well as 10 cases involving arteries in the limbs, and three affecting blood vessels in the brain. Nine patients died. Most of the patients were male, with an average age of 34.3 years. Dr Emilie Jouanjus, from the University of Toulouse, said: "The general public thinks marijuana is harmless, but information revealing the potential health dangers of marijuana use needs to be disseminated." [end]
SMOKING CANNABIS can cause potentially lethal damage to the heart and arteries of young and middle-aged adults, a study found. Researchers in France who looked at almost 2,000 patients with medical problems related to cannabis use identified 35 serious instances of cardiovascular complications. Twenty heart attacks were recorded, as well as 10 cases involving arteries in the limbs, and three affecting blood vessels in the brain. Nine patients, around a quarter of the total, died. Most of the patients were male, with an average age of 34.3 years. [continues 115 words]
The French drug safety agency has approved commercial sales of a medicine derived from cannabis for the first time in France. France's health ministry said on Wednesday that sales of Sativex will be allowed for the treatment of muscle spasms linked with multiple sclerosis. Sativex is said to contain two of marijuana's best known components - delta 9-THC and cannabidiol. [end]
In experiments with rodents, scientists have discovered that a steroid hormone blunts the effects of marijuana, virtually eliminating its high. The hormone, pregnenolone, occurs naturally in the body. In the laboratory, it worked by reducing the reaction to THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the intoxicating ingredient in marijuana, the researchers said. "When the brain is stimulated by high doses of THC, it produces pregnenolone - a 3,000 percent increase - that inhibits the effects of THC," said senior researcher Dr. Pier Vincenzo Piazza of Neurocentre Magendie in Bordeaux, France. [continues 651 words]
PARIS - Paris Hilton was briefly detained in Corsica after sniffer dogs detected a "quite small" quantity of marijuana in her bag, a French newspaper reported yesterday. Corse Matin newspaper said officers at the airport in Figari found about 1 gram of marijuana. Hilton, who was transiting the French Mediterranean island in a private jet on Friday, was hauled in for questioning and released about 20 minutes later, the report said. In a story posted on its Web site, the newspaper said Hilton was travelling along with "personalities close to power in Malaysia" from the French capital to Porto-Cerno, in Sardinia. Earlier this month, Hilton was arrested after the Brazil-Netherlands World Cup match in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, on suspicion of possession of marijuana. The case was then dropped at a midnight court hearing. [end]
General Manuel Noriega, Panama's ex-dictator, dismissed charges of laundering drug money as an "imaginary banking scheme" concocted by the United States as he took the stand yesterday in a French court. The 76-year-old general denied taking payments from Colombian drug lords in the 1980s, testifying the cash deposited in French banks came from his legitimate businesses and the Central Intelligence Agency. "I say with much humility and respect that this is an imaginary banking scheme," he said in Spanish through his interpreter on the second day of his trial. [continues 480 words]
A MYSTERY illness that caused an entire French village to go temporarily mad 50-years ago has been blamed on secret CIA mind control experiments with LSD. Hundreds of residents in picturesque Pont-Saint-Esprit were suddenly struck down with mass insanity and hallucinations on August 16, 1951. At least five people in the southern French village died and dozens were locked up in asylums after witnessing terrifying hallucinations of dragons and fire. Poisoned In the horror scenes an 11-year-old tried to strangle his grandmother. Another man shouted: "I am a plane", before jumping out of a second-floor window, breaking his legs. [continues 230 words]
MADRID: One of Colombia's most notorious drug lords, Leonidas Vargas, was shot dead in his Madrid hospital bed on Thursday, Spanish police said. At least one person entered the room in Madrid's October 12th Hospital where Vargas was being treated for a serious illness, and shot the drugs kingpin four times just before 8 p.m. local time, police said. Spanish newspaper El Mundo said the assassin asked another patient who was sharing the Colombian's room if he was Vargas. [continues 172 words]
A PRO-CANNABIS lobby group says an ingredient in cannabis may prevent "mad cow" disease. The National Organisation for Marijuana Law Reform says a French study shows cannabidiol may be effective in preventing bovine spongiforme encephalopathy. Scientists at the National Centre for Scientific Research in France found cannabidiol - a non-psychoactive ingredient - may prevent the development of prion diseases, the most well known of which is BSE. Research found cannabidiol inhibited accumulation of prion proteins in infected mice and sheep. NORML spokesman Chris Fowlie said this added to the scientific evidence supporting Green MP Metiria Turei's bill to legalise the medicinal use of cannabis. "[It] should be supported by any MP with a clear head. Unfortunately most MPs act like mad cows when cannabis is mentioned." [end]
French teenagers see wine and alcohol as "old France" and are increasingly turning to cannabis to let their hair down, according to a national study on its consumption. Jean-Michel Costes, head of the French drugs and addiction watchdog, OFDT, said yesterday that French cannabis use has soared in the past 15 years and is now almost on a par with Britain. While the French drink half the amount they did in the 1960s, cannabis consumption among the 18- to 35-year age group has more than trebled since the early 1990s, the report found. advertisement [continues 410 words]
PARIS - French teenagers see wine and spirits as "old France" and are increasingly turning to cannabis to let their hair down, according to a national study on its consumption. Jean-Michel Costes, head of the French drugs and addiction watchdog, OFDT, said Wednesday that French cannabis use has soared in the past 15 years and is almost on a par with Britain. While the French drink half the amount they did in the 1960s, cannabis consumption among the 18- to 35-year age group has more than trebled since the early 1990s, the report found. "There is a big cultural difference between France and England," said Costes. "Everyone drinks a bit in France, but as part of a meal, not in order to get merry. To do that, the young are turning to cannabis," he said. [end]
Drivers under the influence of marijuana and similar drugs face increased risks of having a fatal car accident, a study finds. The study of drivers responsible for a deadly road crash showed the odds almost doubled for people with cannabis, the plant used to produce marijuana, in their blood, said lead researcher Bernard Laumon from the French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research. The study was published in the British Medical Journal. The researcher studied 9,772 drivers who were involved in fatal crashes from October 2001 until September 2003 and tested for drugs. Of the total, 6,766 drivers were considered at fault. About 7 per cent, or 681 drivers, tested positive for cannabis, 21 per cent, or 2,096, had alcohol in their system and 2.9 per cent, or 285, tested positive for both. [end]
EVRY, France, Nov. 8 - Amin Kouidri, 20, has been hunting for a job for more than two years now and spends his days drifting around a government housing project here under the watchful gaze of France's national police. He and his neighbors in one of France's now-notorious housing projects say that they feel cut off from French society, a result of a process of segregation lasting for decades, and that alienation and pressure from the police have now exploded in rage across the country. [continues 1525 words]
Decriminalization of marijuana NEW YORK - Starting in the autumn, pharmacies in British Columbia will sell marijuana for medicinal purposes, without a prescription, under a pilot project devised by Canada's national health service. The plan follows a 2002 report by a Canadian Senate committee that found there were "clear, though not definitive" benefits for using marijuana in the treatment of chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and other ailments. Both Prime Minister Paul Martin and Stephen Harper, leader of the opposition conservatives, support the decriminalization of marijuana. [continues 1054 words]
PARIS, April 14 (AFP) - French teenagers are among the biggest consumers of cannabis in Europe, smoking joints as often as they drink alcohol, an official study of thousands of students from 450 high schools released Wednesday showed. By the age of 18, two boys in three and one of every two girls have tried the narcotic - illegal in France - the survey by the French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Use (OFDT) revealed. "By the age of 16, regular consumption of cannabis reaches the level of regular consumption of alcohol," the authors said. [continues 80 words]
(AP) LOS ANGELES - Three men who pleaded guilty to distributing marijuana to seriously ill patients received probation instead of a prison term after a judge expressed admiration for their work and called the prosecution "badly misguided." Scott Imler, Jeff Yablan and Jeffrey Farrington each received one year of probation and up to 250 hours of community service on Monday. They had faced up to 30 months in prison. Judge Howard Matz of U.S. District Court said he was navigating "somewhat uncharted shoals," but pointed out that the three men did not distribute the marijuana for money or political leverage. prison. [end]
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's acknowledgment that opium production is on the rise in Afghanistan is most welcome if it spreads to others in the Bush administration. For more than two decades, Washington's war on drugs has tilted heavily toward supply-side strategies: arresting drug smugglers and dealers, attempting to squeeze off the production and availability of narcotics. But this approach has failed in Afghanistan, where U.S. forces and the U.S.-backed government have been less effective than the Taliban in controlling the production of opium and heroin. [continues 251 words]
Ed Rosenthal, an advocate of medical marijuana, is to be sentenced this week on marijuana cultivation charges. His conviction, by a California jury that was made to believe he was a common drug trafficker, was a miscarriage of justice. Growing marijuana for medical use is legal under the California Compassionate Use Act, passed by the voters in 1996, and Rosenthal was authorized by the City of Oakland to grow it. But U.S. law does not distinguish between growing medical marijuana and run-of-the-mill drug cultivation. At Rosenthal's trial, Judge Charles Breyer prohibited the jury from hearing a medical-marijuana defense. [continues 133 words]
The views of United States drug czar John Walters and Attorney General John Ashcroft are not shared by most Americans -- nor by the leaders of other more enlightened countries. These officials are living in a fantasy world of their own creation, as evidenced by their belief that the U.S. government is currently winning the war on drugs. Jeff Moore, Staunton, Virginia [end]
Regarding the report "Canada splits with U.S. on drugs" (May 20): In all fairness, while Canada has been criticized by the United States for legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, America has been criticized for its discredited, zero tolerance, draconian drug policies and its associated use of the prison system. I don't condone injecting drugs, but Canada's safe injection sites must be a more humane way of dealing with drug use than anything America is doing. Locking up drug addicts to forget about them is reminiscent of America's prohibition era. It doesn't work. [continues 52 words]
PARIS, Jan. 11 - There's no rush to choose a new team, Jan Ullrich keeps saying, even though training camps are being held everywhere and the first races of the new bicycle season are just weeks away. The Tour Down Under begins Jan. 21 in Australia, followed by the start of the Tour de Langkawi in Malaysia and the Tour of Qatar, both on Jan. 31. Secondary races all, they offer riders a chance to put some kilometers in their legs in racing conditions, under a hot sun, not the sleet and cold that mark the early European races. [continues 872 words]
France is planning to tighten restrictions on the smoking of cannabis in an attempt to curb its steadily rising popularity. Campaigners claim that millions of people are regularly defying existing laws as more plantations of cannabis are discovered, particularly in the south of the country. At normal levels of consumption, up to three million French people will have smoked the drug on Christmas day. France's hardline interior minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, has been consulting cabinet members and government officials on raising the maximum penalties for cannabis use, from the present level of a year in prison or a UKP5,000 fine. [continues 418 words]
A federal appeals court in California last week struck an important blow for medical marijuana, and for the First Amendment. It held that the government cannot revoke the licenses of doctors who recommend marijuana to their patients. The federal government should now abandon its misguided policy of targeting doctors and sick people to fight marijuana use. The ruling gives new life to the medical marijuana initiative, also known as Proposition 215, which California voters passed in 1996. The law permits seriously ill people to use marijuana on the advice of their physicians, and it says that doctors may not be punished for recommending marijuana to their patients. Shortly after it became law, the federal government announced that it would use its authority under the Controlled Substances Act to revoke the prescription licenses of doctors who recommended marijuana to a patient. [continues 108 words]
On a recent summer tour through south London, I saw the future of drug legalization. A young couple injected heroin inside the filthy ruins of an abandoned building. In this working-class neighborhood, residents weave in and out of crowded sidewalks, trying to avoid making eye contact with dealers who openly push heroin, marijuana and crack. Scotland Yard aggressively targets international drug traffickers, and I applaud its strong overall anti-drug policy. But last year, a local police commander initiated a pilot program in which people caught possessing marijuana were warned rather than arrested. Often, they were just ignored. In news reports and my interviews, residents criticized the program for bringing more drug dealers, more petty criminals and more drug use. [continues 558 words]
The French National Assembly has voted through a law making it an offence to drive while under the influence of drugs. Offenders will be liable to two years in jail and a fine of 4,500 euros. The law - which now goes before the upper house or Senate at the end of the month - also authorises police to conduct random testing. The new law was aimed mainly at smokers of cannabis, which is by far the most popular drug among young people. [continues 258 words]
October 8, 2002 -- You know how to walk like an Egyptian - now scientists say they can make you smell like one, too. Researchers in France have recreated the perfume of the pharaohs, a scent believed to have been used by the ancient Egyptians to boost their love lives. But there's a hitch: The ingredients of Kyphi perfume, an aphrodisiac that helps wearers relax, include marijuana, so it can't be made commercially. The legendary aphrodisiac was concocted by experts from L'Oreal and the Center for Research and Restoration of French Museums.Researcher Sandrine Videault based the formula on the writings of Greek historian Plutarch. The numerous ingredients include pistachios, mint, cinnamon, incense, juniper and myrrh. [end]
Cultivation And Consumption Of The Plant In France Have Soared In Recent Years In France the secret growing of Cannabis sativa , which existed on only a small scale a few years ago, is booming. More than 50 shops around the country now sell the equipment required for this new form of "gardening", whose practitioners, according to Ananda, a specialised wholesaler, number tens of thousands. The craze for home-grown cannabis is also evident from the proliferation of books, magazines and websites devoted to the subject, as well as from the increase in the number of events that aim to promote the plant's legal and industrial form, hemp, which contains almost no psychoactive substances. This has already given its name to a trade show, the Salon Europeen du Chanvre, which has been held in Paris for the past two years, to a line of mass-market cosmetics, and to a folkloric festival in Montjean-sur-Loire, western France. [continues 821 words]
PARIS - The French Navy's dramatic high seas raid in June of a ship suspected of smuggling drugs has been attacked by Greek and Spanish officials for a lack of professionalism, France's Le Monde newspaper said on Saturday. The "Winner," a Cambodian-flagged freighter bound for Spain from the Caribbean, was seized in the Atlantic in an operation ordered by the French interim right-wing government three days before the decisive second round of the legislative elections. French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin had at the time hailed the operation "a great success against international drug trafficking." [continues 240 words]
The tribes of the French rave movement were massing yesterday for what may turn out to be their last stand. The frontier of France and Italy, high in the Alps, was the battleground chosen by the ravers for a confrontation with the French government, which they claim is engaged in a "genocidal war" against youth culture, techno music and large rave parties. The French authorities have pledged to enforce rigorously a new law, giving them the power to seize the sound equipment at any rave that takes place without written permission. The ravers said the government has blocked all reasonable efforts to seek such permission in recent weeks. They insisted that Europe's biggest rave of the year, the Teknival " due to last until Sunday, and attract up to 20,000 people and dozens of bands or "sound systems" from several countries " would go ahead regardless. [continues 1024 words]
Regarding "An atrocity of arrests in a Panhandle town" (Meanwhile, July 31) by Bob Herbert: The problem of racial profiling in America is by no means limited to Texas. U.S. government statistics reveal that the drug war is waged in a racist manner through the nation. Blacks and whites use drugs at roughly the same rates. Although only 15 percent of the nation's drug users are black, blacks account for 37 percent of those arrested for drug violations, over 42 percent of those in federal prisons for drug violations, and almost 60 percent of those in state prisons for drug felonies. Support for the war on some drugs would end overnight if whites were incarcerated for drugs at the same rate as minorities. [continues 88 words]
The British organizer of a giant rave in France threatened yesterday to halt the country's holiday traffic in protest against a government policy against free music festivals. Allan Blinkhorn, an organiser of the Teknival, due to start "somewhere in the south of France" on Thursday, said he planned a slow-moving convoy of trucks carrying loudspeakers on the main motorway south from tomorrow night. "Two trucks packed with sound systems travelling at 50kph (30mph), means 400 kilometres (250 miles) of jams," Mr Blinkhorn said. [continues 274 words]
France's new government looks set to take the opposite line from Britain on drugs, handing down stiff penalties even for casual users of cannabis, writes Jon Henley A couple of days before the British home secretary, David Blunkett, announced he was reclassifying cannabis as a less dangerous drug, the doorbell rang at Jerome Expuesto's home in Le Tour-de-Salvagny near Lyon. The gendarmes on his doorstep were there to escort the 29-year-old off to Saint-Paul prison, where he is now serving a three-year term for drug dealing in what many see as the latest distressing injustice in France's increasingly aggressive war on drugs. [continues 556 words]
NEW YORK When I was a high school social studies teacher in Vermont, one of my duties was to instruct a state-mandated unit on alcohol and illegal drugs. Our curriculum encouraged us to lead "discussions" about these substances, but there was one fact we could never discuss: They make you feel good. That's right: They make you feel good. You read it here first. And soon, New Yorkers will be reading it on the subway - right under a photograph of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Earlier this week, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws unveiled a $500,000 advertising campaign featuring a quotation from Bloomberg. Asked last year whether he had ever smoked marijuana, Bloomberg told New York magazine, "You bet I did. And I enjoyed it." [continues 502 words]
LONDON - Colombia should have everything in its favor. An Atlantic and Pacific coastline, the wealth of oil, coal, diamonds and coffee, a rich potential for tourism and a long history of respect for democratic institutions should make the country a model Latin American nation. Instead, Colombia has a long history of violence: 40,000 have been killed in nearly four decades of guerrilla and paramilitary violence. Illegal armed groups routinely kidnap, take hostages, commit murder and extortion, and show unrestricted contempt for international humanitarian law, both against the civilian population and against their political opponents. [continues 710 words]
French Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin stirred controversy by suggesting that occasional smokers of cannabis should be treated with leniency. Supporters of conservative President Jacques Chirac, his neck-and-neck rival in the April 21 vote, slammed the remarks as irresponsible, while the pro-legalization lobby called for a debate on reform of France's tough drug laws. Jospin said legalization would send the wrong signal to the young but insisted that France's 32-year-old drug laws should be applied "in an intelligent manner" toward users. [end]
The French Prime Minister and presidential election front-runner, Lionel Jospin, incurred the fury of right-wing opponents yesterday by declaring that smoking a joint at home was less dangerous than drinking and driving. Mr Jospin repeated his refusal to bow to pressure from some Socialist and Green allies for the decriminalisation of cannabis. He said relaxing the laws on soft drugs would "give the wrong signal to young people". But the Socialist Prime Minister told the French news agency Agence France Presse, in an interview by fax, that virulent critics of cannabis should remember that both drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco could be more life-threatening. [continues 306 words]
PARIS - The acrid scent of cannabis wafted into France's presidential race on Tuesday as Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin stirred controversy by suggesting occasional smokers should be treated with leniency. Supporters of conservative President Jacques Chirac, his neck-and-neck rival in the April 21 vote, slammed the remarks as irresponsible while the country's pro-legalisation lobby called for a proper debate on reform of France's tough drug laws. Jospin, who has previously owned up to having smoked cannabis himself twice, started it all by telling an interviewer on Monday: "Smoking a joint at home is certainly less dangerous than drinking and driving." [continues 312 words]
The various armed factions waging civil war in Colombia are financially dependent on the U.S. drug war. Forcibly limiting supply while demand for drugs remains constant only increases the profitability of drug trafficking. For the same reasons prohibition of alcohol failed in the United States, the drug war has been doomed from the start. Even if every last plant in Colombia were destroyed, Americans would continue to get high. Cut off the flow of cocaine and domestic methamphetamine production will boom. Thanks to past successes in eradicating marijuana in Latin America, the corresponding increase in domestic cultivation has made marijuana America's number one cash crop. [continues 61 words]
US Demands A Secure, Compliant Hemisphere Revolt in Argentina, clashes in Bolivia, violent disputes over land in Brazil, trade unionists murdered in Colombia, and a general strike in Venezuela: Latin America has been exasperated by 20 years of ultra- liberalism. Now the US is using its fight against global terrorism as a pretext for a military response to unrest in the Americas. "The key question about the defence of the American hemisphere is: what is the threat? In the past, the Americas faced a relatively well- defined threat that the average American could understand (1). Today that threat has become infinitely more complex and more difficult to define." That was Professor Lewis Arthur Tambs, diplomat, historian, professor at Arizona State University and the author of a report on the future of the Americas, summarised in nine points the nine Ds the guiding principles for the hemisphere's security before 11 September. (They are defence, drugs, demography, debt, deindustrialisation, populist post-cold war democracy, destabilisation, deforestation and the decline of the United States (2). [continues 1222 words]
PARIS, Oct. 23 -- The price of Afghan heroin has dropped, but police departments across Europe say that is unlikely to affect street prices much and has not done so to date. British police intelligence sources said the price at the Afghanistan- Pakistan border had dropped since Sept. 11 to $200 a kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, from $400. Europe gets the bulk of its heroin from Afghanistan while American dealers buy from Colombia, Mexico and Southeast Asia as well. A spokesman for the British National Criminal Intelligence Service noted that the border price for heroin was $100 a kilo until July 2000 when the Taliban banned the cultivation of opium poppies. The price then shot up to $400. [continues 614 words]
FRANCE'S Socialist Health Minister, Bernard Kouchner, has backed calls for the decriminalisation of all drugs. His comments have revived a debate among a political class divided between Roman Catholic conservatives and urban liberals and are likely to embarrass Lionel Jospin, the Prime Minister, who is far more cautious on the subject. M Kouchner was speaking a week after the French National Aids Council -- including scientists, jurists and doctors -- said that French legislation banning drug-taking gave rise to a "policy that hesitates between treatment and repression and constitutes a handicap to developing the strategy of reducing Aids risks". M Kouchner has long shared this view, but had not hitherto expressed it so clearly while in his ministerial post. [end]
Regarding the editorial "Misplaced Priorities" (Aug. 25): The editorial was right on target. In order to justify ever-expanding budgets, U.S. drug warriors claim they target major drug kingpins who traffic in heroin and cocaine. U.S. government statistics reveal otherwise. The drug war in America is in large part a war against marijuana, by far the most popular illicit drug. In 1999 there were 704,812 arrests for marijuana, 620,541 for possession alone. For a drug that has never been shown to cause an overdose death, the allocation of resources used to enforce marijuana laws is outrageous. [continues 145 words]
Attorney General John Ashcroft responded to the Justice Department's latest figures on drug prosecutions by claiming that they prove that "federal law enforcement is targeted effectively at convicting major drug traffickers and punishing them with longer lockups in prison." The data the department released show almost the opposite: that the nation's tough drug sentencing regime is, to a great extent, being used to lock up comparatively low-level offenders who could easily be prosecuted in state courts. The data, far from affirming that the federal drug effort is a success, raise real questions about the federal government's prosecutorial priorities in the war on drugs. The growth in federal drug prosecutions over the past two decades has been prodigious. [continues 166 words]
Political Battle Brews Over Freedom To Party At Will PAULE, France -- To the young, they are free-for-alls of drug-induced revelry and thumping techno beats in the bucolic French countryside. To President Jacques Chirac, they are a growing problem. Rave parties, Dionysian fests involving abundant marijuana, heroin, cocaine and especially the designer drug Ecstasy, have been around for about a decade in Europe. But now, with five rave-related deaths reported in a year and increasing property damage, they are drawing the attention of France's political establishment. [continues 366 words]
PAULE, France - To the young, they are free-for-alls of drug-induced revelry and thumping techno beats in the bucolic French countryside. To President Jacques Chirac, they are a growing problem. Rave parties, Dionysian fests involving abundant marijuana, heroin, cocaine and especially the designer drug ecstasy, have been around for about a decade in Europe. But now, with five rave-related deaths reported in a year and increasing property damage, they are drawing the attention of France's political establishment. [continues 672 words]
Inside France
