On the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark decision allowing the federal government to overrule state medical-marijuana laws, a new lobbying group is trying to persuade some of the House's most conservative members to protect the terminally ill's right to use the drug. Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a nonprofit group funded by patients, doctors and researchers who support exploring marijuana's therapeutic potential, opened its Washington office last month and completed its first grassroots lobbying visits yesterday. [continues 413 words]
The frantic 911 call from a University of Maryland dormitory came in at 6:32 a.m. June 19, 1986. A 22-year-old campus hero -- the finest basketball player in the Terrapins' history, just two days earlier the second player chosen in the NBA draft -- was sprawled on the floor between two narrow beds, unconscious, without a pulse. "It's Len Bias. . . . He's not breathing right," one of his closest friends, a Maryland dropout named Brian Tribble, told the dispatcher in a shaky voice. "You've got to bring him back to life." [continues 2547 words]
Prevention Works Clients Are Mostly Gay White Men When a methamphetamine user approaches Kristen Degan, she offers a practiced response. She regularly welcomes meth addicts to Prevention Works, a privately funded program in D.C. that operates a needle exchange program and encourages addiction treatment. Degan, a program assistant who specializes in meth issues, counts the number of needles brought to her, disposes of them, then provides an equal number of clean needles in return. She also gives meth users several condoms, towelettes and antibiotic ointment. [continues 1060 words]
Today, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Corrections and Rehabilitation is scheduled to hear findings from the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons' report, released today. The commission began last year as a nonpartisan effort co-chaired by former LBJ Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and former appellate court Judge John J. Gibbons to study the state of America's prison system, which holds on any given day 2.2 million prisoners at an annual cost of $60 billion. The magnitude of the prison system, although trumpeted often enough by the liberal media, remains a troubling part of our society, all the more so since, as the report found, data collection remains poor to nonexistent. [continues 351 words]
High rates of disease and illness among inmates in the nation's jails and prisons, coupled with inadequate funding for correctional health care, has put the nation's 2.2 million prisoners at risk, along with corrections officers and the public, a report said yesterday. Every year, according to a report by the 21-member Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, more than 1.5 million people are released from jails and prisons nationwide carrying life-threatening contagious diseases, and another 350,000 inmates have serious mental illnesses. [continues 378 words]
It's hard to imagine that Patrick Kennedy would have gotten elected to Congress a dozen years ago without his last name. It's equally hard to imagine that the media would be going wild about his late-night car crash and prescription drug addiction if he weren't a Kennedy. The only lingering mystery is why national news organizations didn't pounce earlier on the Rhode Island Democrat's long history of alcohol and drug abuse, depression and a series of downright embarrassing incidents. [continues 1175 words]
It's hard to imagine that Patrick Kennedy would have gotten elected to Congress a dozen years ago without his last name. It's equally hard to imagine that the media would be going wild about his late-night car crash and prescription drug addiction if he weren't a Kennedy. The only lingering mystery is why national news organizations didn't pounce earlier on the Rhode Island Democrat's long history of alcohol and drug abuse, depression and a series of downright embarrassing incidents. [continues 2493 words]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit discovered a new constitutional right yesterday: "the right of a mentally competent, terminally ill adult patient to access potentially life-saving post-Phase I investigational new drugs, upon a doctor's advice, even where that medication carries risks for the patient" and has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. If you don't remember reading those particular words in the founding charter, don't kick yourself. [continues 483 words]
Tommy Chong, the comedian and actor of Cheech and Chong fame, will be the keynote speaker for the Washington-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws' 2006 national conference, which begins tomorrow in San Francisco. "I guess you could say it's Chong sans bong," says NORML media guru Nicholas Thimmesch II, one-time communications director to former Rep. Steve Largent, Oklahoma Republican, and son of the late Los Angeles Times Syndicate columnist Nick Thimmesch. This columnist once asked Mr. Thimmesch, who began his career in the Reagan White House -- and later served on the 1992 Bush-Quayle campaign, ditto on the 1996 Dole-Kemp campaign, and huddled with former drug czar and conservative moralist Bill Bennett at Empower America -- what would Ronald Reagan say if he knew he was peddling marijuana decriminalization? [continues 196 words]
As the parent of two alumni of Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, I was incensed by an April 5 Metro article about three Smith students arrested in Israel for allegedly buying or using marijuana at a school there. I wonder about the motives behind this coverage of an event that should have been handled privately among the teens, their parents and the school. According to Montgomery County police, there were 438 arrests of juveniles in the county on drug charges in 2005. Very little, if any, media coverage surrounded these unfortunate incidents. How then did Smith students become such a focal point of media attention? [continues 76 words]
Jonathan Magbie was a 27-year-old man who was paralyzed from the neck down as a result of a childhood accident. Although he had never been convicted of a criminal offense and although he required private nursing care for as much as 20 hours a day, Magbie was given a 10-day sentence in the D.C. jail in September 2004 by D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith E. Retchin for possession of a marijuana cigarette. He died in city custody four days later. His story has been the subject of several previous columns. [continues 735 words]
At an Exxon station in Southeast Washington, behind a thick pane of protective glass, an attendant in a white Yankees cap peddles chips, cheap cigars and fake roses inside tiny glass tubes. The little cloth flower looks like a novelty item, something a smitten teenager might buy his sweetheart. But the rose is a ruse, police say, a distraction to be thrown away. The real attraction is the four-inch-long tube that holds the flower. It's a thinly disguised crack pipe, law enforcement officials say. [continues 974 words]
Marc Emery, who distributed millions of marijuana seeds throughout the country, admits the accuracy of the Drug Enforcement Administration's charges against him, but he denies harming Americans ["High Crimes, or a Tokin' Figure?" Style, March 18]. Like all dealers, Mr. Emery turns a blind eye to marijuana's victims - -- people like Victoria Rogers, a mother driving with her children when she was killed by a marijuana-intoxicated motorist. Marijuana feeds thousands of addictions -- so many that more teenagers enter treatment for marijuana dependency than for all other drugs combined. Thousands of adolescents whose brains are still developing also suffer from depression, memory impairment and diminished judgment because of marijuana. Users destroy their lungs because marijuana smoke contains 50 to 70 percent more cancer-causing chemicals than tobacco smoke. That Mr. Emery sees no consequences of his actions does not change the fact that they destroy innocent American lives and that he should and will face legal consequences as a result. Administrator Drug Enforcement Administration Arlington [end]
The House yesterday approved an amendment calling for $99.4 million in emergency anti-drug funds to assist in Colombia's war against narco-terrorists by replacing 23 aircraft that have been shot down or crashed since 2000 and buying three new ones for the Colombian National Police and the country's navy. The money was included as an add-on to a pending $72.4 billion appropriations bill for the war on terrorism and passed 250-172 amid a flurry of votes on several spending projects. It faces formal approval in the House and then will be sent to Senate for a vote. [continues 382 words]
A former D.C. fire cadet assigned to the firehouse that routinely provides support for helicopter landings at the vice president's mansion was reinstated this month after being arrested twice on charges of drug possession, distribution and resisting arrest last year. Kevin. E. Steve, 23, pleaded guilty in Montgomery County in October to possession with intent to distribute Ecstasy and marijuana. He was handed an 18-month suspended sentence and placed on probation for two years. The sentence stemmed from a June 14 incident in which police stopped Steve at about 11 p.m. in Silver Spring for driving 50 mph in a 25 mph zone. According to charging documents, a search of Steve's car turned up a paper bag filled with 17 baggies containing white pills that police later determined were the drug Ecstasy and 12 small baggies containing marijuana. Steve was carrying $795 in cash, and two burned marijuana cigarettes were in the ashtray. Two months later, on Aug. 29 at 9 p.m. in Capitol Heights, two Prince George's County police officers on routine patrol saw Steve sitting on a parked motorcycle that had its plates turned inward. The officers thought the motorcycle might be stolen and approached Steve to ask him about it. According to court records, Steve backed away from the officers as they approached. When an officer ordered him to stop backing away, Steve ran down a hill. "As he ran, he reached to the front of his pants and grabbed his waist line," one of the officers stated in court records. The officer said Steve fell, "simultaneously throwing the contents of his pockets to the ground." The officer said he ordered Steve to lie on his stomach and put his hands on his head. "The defendant refused, remaining on his side, and reaching for his waistband," the officer said. "I then employed the use of my ... baton, striking the defendant in his upper arm, ordering him again onto his stomach." At that point, Steve complied. [continues 311 words]
Westley Clark is a doctor and a lawyer, no small accomplishment for a black guy who grew up poor in Detroit. He could have gone on to make plenty of money, no doubt, and never looked back. But he couldn't forget where he came from or ignore the devastated lives of those left behind. Clark, 59, is director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That position gives him a unique perspective on one of the most serious problems ever to plague black America. [continues 664 words]
As we were watching a story on the evening news about the extravagance and excesses of lobbyists, my son asked me, "Aren't you a lobbyist?" Yes, I said. "You must not be very good at it," he said. By some modern standards, maybe not. I don't own an airplane. I've never played golf at St. Andrews. The most I ever paid for a suit was $450, and I got married in it. I don't have an office on K Street, although sometimes I hold meetings at a Starbucks on K Street. I don't buy lavish dinners for members of Congress on behalf of my clients. In fact, I have nothing of value to offer a member of Congress except an occasional $15 plaque and an invaluable cause. [continues 602 words]
This week a House subcommittee held hearings on a bill, the Second Chance Act, which is meant to deal with the problems that prisoners encounter on their reentry into society and also with their need for substance abuse treatment. The concern over prisoners and recidivism is justified. Though national crime rates declined steadily over the past decade, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that the percentage of released prisoners re-arrested within three years increased from 62.5 percent in 1983 to 67.5 percent in 1994. And given that offenders are arrested for only a fraction of the crimes they commit, even this depressing statistic is an underestimate. Few would dispute that the correctional system must be changed. But how? [continues 729 words]
Maybe it's time to get soft on crime. That's because many criminals are more likely to go astray once they get out of prison if they faced longer sentences and more punitive conditions in the slammer, claim economists M. Keith Chen of Yale University and Jesse M. Shapiro of the University of Chicago. "Harsher prison conditions are associated with significantly more post-release crime," they report in their updated working paper posted on the university Web sites, a finding that suggests doing hard time often may only produce more hard-core crooks. [continues 240 words]
It is the ultimate parental nightmare: Your affectionate child is transformed, seemingly overnight, into an out-of-control, drug-addicted, hostile teenager. Many parents blame themselves. "Where did we go wrong?" they ask. The kids, meanwhile, hurtle through their own bewildering adolescent nightmare. I know. My descent into drug addiction started in high school and now, as an adult, I have a much better understanding of my parents' anguish and of what I was going through. And, after devoting several years to researching treatment programs, I'm also aware of the traps that many parents fall into when they finally seek help for their kids. [continues 1452 words]
One man confesses to raping a 7-year-old girl countless times and gets 60 days in jail from a Vermont judge who no longer "believes" in punishment. Another man, a quadriplegic in D.C., basically gets a death sentence for getting caught with a single marijuana joint. There's much to be said for judicial discretion, but this point spread is ridiculous. There no longer seems to be any national - or rational - standard in matters of crime and punishment. In September 2004, D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Retchin sentenced 27-year-old Johnathan Magbie to 10 days in the D.C. Jail for his first offense, a misdemeanor. Magbie, who was paralyzed from the neck down in a drunken driving accident when he was 4, never made it out alive. [continues 186 words]
Former D.C. Council Member Struggles to Cope With 1 Grandson's Slaying, Another's Arrest By the time a stray bullet killed Jon Allen Jr., a lot of people in Southeast Washington knew just who he was. "I'm Sandy Allen's grandson," the 15-year-old liked to say. Almost everyone in Southeast knows or has heard of Sandy Allen. She was born in the District, a fifth-generation Washingtonian, a one-time welfare mom of two sons who became a community activist and then a member of the D.C. Council until last year. A woman of stature and influence, from the neighborhood. [continues 2284 words]
A little Sudafed, a handful of matches, a dollopof iodine, a dash of lighter fluid ... my sister Candy would soon discover that methamphetamine isn't hard to make, but it will make your life hell The day of my daughter's fourth birthday party, July 14, 2002, started out sticky hot. By 9 a.m., Sophie had skinned her knee running favors from our car to the picnic tables at our swim club. Inflatable beach balls, leis, bags of gummy fish -- the whole tropical gamut -- had spilled out of our cardboard boxes, and my daughter, bathing suit clammy under her shorts, was sobbing. Meanwhile, I was fuming. [continues 4964 words]
Longtime Users Say Fight to Stay Clean Never Ends They've been there, these two men, in the low, desperate place they say an addict inevitably goes. They've lied and thieved for their highs, gotten caught, gotten jailed, struggled to stay clean and repeatedly failed. Tom Canady and James Gaither have, in essence, walked the same walk that a failed drug test indicates Marion Barry is facing once again. No one understands better the pull of cocaine, crack or heroin than a fellow addict. The same holds true of the daunting effort it takes to break away. How hard? How constant? Ask someone who succeeded -- or is still trying. [continues 832 words]
What does the rise of Evo Morales as president of Bolivia mean for the average American? More than you might think. Less than you might be inclined to have nightmares about. Here are the core facts. First, Mr. Morales is committed to legalizing coca growing, implicitly supporting cocaine and coca paste syndicates in rural Bolivia's Chapare regions. If real, such a policy would accelerate coca growth all over the nation, upending longtime gains and U.S. policy. Bolivia's tottering economy would face the sort of self-inflicted wound not seen in decades. It would last years. [continues 500 words]
Late one night in 1996, suspicious that Marion Barry was using drugs again, boxing promoter Rock Newman sat him down and told him that he should resign as D.C. mayor and focus on beating his addiction. Newman said Barry cried in his arms. He remembers Barry telling him: "I love you, man. I know I betrayed your friendship." Barry agreed to leave town for a while and take a second stab at treatment. But he wouldn't give up politics. "He felt if he wasn't the mayor, he wasn't nothing," Newman said. [continues 1767 words]
There was far less "buzz" than usual during the NFL's final regular season Monday night football game between the New York Jets and the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, and it had little to do with the Jets' dire season record. Rather, the ennui of the tens of thousands of atypically subdued fans in attendance could best be summed up in three words, prominently displayed on makeshift signs throughout ABC's nationwide telecast: "We want beer!" That's right, beer. [continues 486 words]
Responses Mixed on Barry Drug Test The news that D.C. Council member Marion Barry failed a court-ordered drug test in the fall drew sighs, prayers and a call for him to take a leave from his council seat. But at his old haunts and among his constituents, what was missing yesterday was a sense of surprise. For many, this is the fourth decade of the sometimes rocky, sometimes inspiring marriage between Barry, the former four-term mayor who now represents Ward 8 on the council, and the residents of his adopted city. If there was one feeling, it was an amalgam of sadness, empathy and deja vu. [continues 1181 words]
Drug Check Ordered After Tax Case Plea D.C. Council member Marion Barry tested positive for cocaine use in the fall in a drug test ordered by a court after he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor tax charges, according to two sources familiar with Barry's case. Barry, who served four terms as mayor and was elected to the Ward 8 council seat in 2004, has since begun treatment for drug use, the sources said, but Barry's failure to pass the mandatory drug test puts him in legal jeopardy. [continues 1012 words]
By the latest count, more than 250,000 Marylanders are in need of substance-abuse treatment. Even in Montgomery County, considered the state's wealthiest county, the treatment gap is great. Yet despite population growth, state funding for treatment has declined. More than three-quarters of those in Maryland prisons report having an alcohol or drug problem, and four out of 10 entering the state's prisons every year are locked up for drug offenses. Maryland has the third-highest percentage of prison admissions for drug offenses in the country. [continues 388 words]
George F. Will makes an unaccustomed historical error in assuming there were statutes against drug use when the 14th Amendment was passed ["The Abortion Argument We Missed," op-ed, Dec. 1]. In fact, drug laws are a 20th-century invention. In my grandparents' youth, the right to use drugs was commonly accepted: Opium, morphine and other narcotics were available over the counter. Local laws against Chinese opium smoking began to appear in the late 19th century, but these laws were directed at commercial dens, not private use. Not until the 20th century, when laws against possession began to be enacted, did state laws target drug users. [continues 60 words]
Odd? Maybe. Predictable? Probably. Worrisome? Definitely. Word is trickling back from Iraq, through official and unofficial channels, that "opiates" (likely of Afghan origin) may be showing up in dead Iraqi insurgents. Five questions flow from that trickle. (1) Is it true? Is it possible that, consistent with anecdotal reports of heroin and methamphetamines discovered more often (especially in southern Iraqi cities of Basrah and Najaf), insurgents are getting a mind-numbing dose of heroin prior to suicide attacks? There are ways to find out. First, add that question to current and future interrogations. Second, do basic testing where possible on remains. Third, do a drug test shortly after apprehending someone, as we often do after arrests in this country. We might discover something worthwhile. [continues 413 words]
As a police detective in Michigan, I was fully aware of the problems that the Prince George's County police face ["Bullets Keep Flying," editorial, Dec. 7]. I learned that drug laws generated about 75 percent of my caseload and that nonviolent felonies often were not investigated because of lack of time. Switzerland has cut its felony crime in half by having the state regulate and sell heroin to addicts in a government program. What part of drug prohibition is making Prince George's County a safer place to live? Will we ever be as wise as our grandparents and end drug prohibition? Howard J. Wooldridge Frederick The writer is a director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. [end]
PRINCE GEORGE'S County Police Chief Melvin C. High may think he's doing a grand job of fighting crime -- that's what he keeps saying -- but the evidence isn't there. It's grimly official now: The shooting of a man in Riverdale Park on Nov. 21 raised the number of homicides in the county this year to a record 155, topping the 1991 total of 154 killings. As of yesterday evening, the total had risen to 159. As the surge of violence continues, the reassurances of Chief High that his battle plan will deliver better days are neither comforting nor believable. [continues 428 words]
Headquartered in a basement along Pennsylvania Avenue SE, nearly spitting distance from the Capitol, the drop-in center and offices of Metro TeenAIDS (MTA) are very unassuming. The art on the walls is created by clients, using mixed media of personal photos, condoms, glue and motivational messages. The furniture is mismatched, threadbare in spots, yet comfortable. During a rainy, midweek lunch hour, the mood is upbeat. HIV may kill people, but it hasn't managed to kill youthful enthusiasm. Advertisement . Page Continued [continues 1904 words]
When Paul Kawata agreed to serve as executive director of the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) in 1989, the organization had a staff of four and operated on an annual budget of about $700,000. Sixteen years later, Kawata oversees a 40-person operation with a budget of $7 million. "This was supposed to be a four-year gig," he says with a laugh. "And I'm still here." Advertisement . Page Continued The reason why Kawata is still at NMAC's helm is clear to anyone who knows him. He's committed -- devoted, really -- to fighting AIDS, particularly in the hard-hit minority communities. But even Kawata, whose every e-mail features the salutation "Yours in the struggle," recognizes there is room for improvement in NMAC's work with the 3,000 community-based AIDS organizations it serves, as it helps them focus on prevention, care and treatment for people of color living with AIDS. "Our mission," says Kawata, "is to develop leadership within communities of color -- predominantly African American, Latino, Native American and Asian -- to address the challenges of HIV/AIDS." He points out that, in addition to serving as a resource, NMAC is also "a kind of trade association," providing a lobbying voice on Capitol Hill for those who might otherwise go unheard. Kawata [continues 3087 words]
WASHINGTON -- Henry J. Friendly, who died in 1986, was perhaps the most distinguished American judge never to serve on the Supreme Court, and he almost spared the nation the poisonous consequences of that court's 1973 truncation of democratic debate about abortion policy. The story of that missed blessing was told recently by Judge A. Raymond Randolph of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in an address to the Federalist Society. In 1970, Friendly, then on the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, was a member of a three-judge panel that heard the first abortion-rights case ever filed in a federal court, alleging the unconstitutionality of New York's abortion laws. Friendly wrote a preliminary opinion that was never issued because, in that pre-Roe era, democracy was allowed to function: New York's Legislature legalized abortion on demand during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, causing the three-judge panel to dismiss the case as moot. [continues 617 words]
Does a religious organization have the right to use controlled substances? The question was before the Supreme Court recently. O Centro Spirit Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal (UDV), New Mexico-based church is currently fighting for their First Amendment right to practice their religion freely. In the members' quest for spirtuality, they consume a cup of hoasca tea, which only grows in the Amazon River Basin, in a total of 32 ceremonies a year. The tea contains the illegal substance dimethyltryptamine (DMT). DMT is classified in the United States as a Section I illegal drug under the Controlled Substances Act, and the import of the tea is outlawed under the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances. [continues 430 words]
It's time to put an end to all the headlines about achievement problems in our schools -- a far easier chore than most people imagine. All we need to do is two things: First, stop calling those establishments simply schools, when they're really hybrid institutions that are raising many of our children, not just educating them. Then ensure that those who deliver family-like services there are devoted exclusively to those tasks, so that the educators can focus fully on academics. [continues 1442 words]
Magbie Experiences Respiratory Distress at [Correctional Treatment Facility] September 24. [District Fire and Emergency Medical Services] paramedics arrived at approximately 9 a.m. During an interview, one stated that they found Magbie 'unconscious, very sweaty, and sitting at a 45-degree angle in his wheelchair.' His diaper was saturated with 'very dark' urine and his catheter drainage bag was filled with 'tea-colored urine.' One of the paramedics stated . . . that it appeared that 'Magbie had not been cleaned for several days.' His pupils were fixed and dilated. Paramedics could not get Magbie to respond verbally to a 'pain stick' or to ammonia. [continues 1189 words]
Bravo to Ryan Grim for clearly laying out the culpability of Congress in the tragic, completely needless death of quadriplegic Jonathan Magbie ("Congressional Malpractice," 11/4). While there is plenty of blame to go around for this legally sanctioned murder (and no, that is not too strong a term), the bottom line is simple: Magbie's use of marijuana to relieve his spasms should not have been a crime. The District's citizens voted overwhelmingly to make medical use of marijuana legal. Had Congress not intervened to block the voters' decision, Jonathan Magbie would never have been sentenced to jail for marijuana possession and almost certainly would be alive today. All who had a hand in this, from former Congressman Bob Barr to Judge Retchin to the jail authorities, should be forever ashamed. And Congress must get rid of the Barr Amendment before it causes another pointless death. Bruce Mirken Director of communications Marijuana Policy Project [end]
Comments On Drug Use And Treatment George Kolodner, a board-certified addiction psychiatrist and medical director of the Kolmac Clinic in Silver Spring, Md., was online Tuesday, Nov. 8, at 4:30 p.m. ET to answer your questions about Crystal Methamphetamine use and the treatment for addiction. From The Post: Meth Comes Out of the Closet (Post, Nov. 8) Kolodner was quoted in today's article: "George Kolodner, a board-certified addiction psychiatrist and medical director of the Kolmac Clinic in Silver Spring, said his clinic saw an increase in crystal meth users beginning about two years ago, but the trend has not accelerated since then. He said meth users are the most difficult patients to treat because there is no medication to prevent craving or treat the protracted post-use symptoms, such as dysphoria, or depressed mood. [continues 1191 words]
In Parts Of Washington's Gay Community, Crystal Methamphetamine Is Starting To Take A Toll -- And Creating A Demand For Treatment Special to The Washington Post Chad Upham had been the kind of kid any parent would be proud of -- an Eagle Scout, a good child who didn't cause problems in his fundamentalist Christian family. He didn't touch a beer until he was 21. Jump forward to an early Monday morning this past July. Upham, now 27, had been up all night after another weekend of drugs and sexual hookups with strangers he met online. [continues 2095 words]
How Bob Barr & Co. Killed Jonathan Magbie Thirteen months ago, Superior Court Judge Judith Retchin sentenced Jonathan Magbie, a 27-year-old quadriplegic, to a 10-day D.C. jail sentence for marijuana possession, assuring attorneys she had checked with the jail and that it could handle someone in his condition. By the fourth day of Magbie's sentence, he was locked in a cell with no ability to communicate or call for help. His breathing tube had been improperly placed; his weight had plummeted since his arrival; his apparent pneumonia had gone untreated. [continues 1521 words]
The GW chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws is to be commended for taking on GW's zero-tolerance stance against marijuana. It would appear that President Trachtenberg has been deluded by the White House Office of National Drug Policy's "reefer madness" revisited campaign. The marijuana plant has not changed since Trachtenberg authored an article in 1972 arguing for decriminalization. What has changed is the federal government's willingness to lie and deceive to keep the drug war gravy train chugging along. [continues 171 words]
This letter is in response to last Thursday's article featuring GW NORML and particularly the comments of our fearless leader, President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg ("Group pushes for GW to change marijuana policy," Oct. 27, p. 1). Trachtenberg, despite having written an article for a journal in 1972 as a proponent of marijuana decriminalization, stated that he changed his stance on the matter because later studies showed that marijuana has more harmful effects than he was aware of at the time. More harmful? That's odd. The studies that I've read about suggest the exact opposite. [continues 163 words]
A new student organization is trying to persuade GW to lessen its penalties for drug violations, particularly for students who lose University housing after being caught with marijuana in their dorm rooms. Students in GW's chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws said they are critical of GW's policy against marijuana use because students can be evicted from campus after one drug offense. Junior Ronald Fisher, GW NORML president, said he thinks drug violations involving marijuana should be treated similarly to an alcohol violation. [continues 667 words]
A little advice for anybody who cheered when former House Majority Leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay was indicted on conspiracy and money laundering charges: Watch your back. You could be the next target of some ambitious prosecutor. DeLay has accused Texas U.S. Attorney Ronnie Earle of prosecutorial misconduct for going to a third grand jury when the first two in Travis County refused to indict him. Unfortunately for DeLay and other less well-known defendants, legal experts say, the federal grand jury system allows prosecutors to shop around for jurors willing to find probable cause that a crime has been committed. Just because one grand jury can't find a criminal offense doesn't mean the next one won't. [continues 548 words]
I agree with the Oct. 4 editorial "Imported Drugs and the Law" about Montgomery County Council President Tom Perez's pursuit of legislation to allow the importation of drugs from Canada despite federal law to the contrary. However, the editorial did not go far enough in pointing out the danger of a government knowingly breaking the law. What kind of signal does it send to county residents and employees when the council and its president pursue legislation that the state attorney general, the council's lawyer and two independent law firms have determined to be illegal? "Good government" means that if you can't change a law or have it overturned in a court, you must live with it, not knowingly break it. Civil disobedience is the domain of citizens, not government. Bill Pierce Silver Spring [end]
John Gross asked, "Can something be ethical but illegal?" The answer is yes, and here are two examples: Helping slaves to escape their legal owners in mid-19th century America and refusing to testify against friends during the McCarthy hearings. And what about using marijuana to ease the suffering of cancer patients? Perhaps a philosophy course along with the Logic 101 class that Mr. Gross referred to would help us all to better understand the relationship of ethics and the law. Ronald F. Balazik Alexandria [end]
Inside District of Columbia
