WASHINGTON -- A prestigious scientific journal is retracting a study about the effects of the drug Ecstasy on the brain because the animals used in the research were given a different drug. The researchers blamed the error on a labeling mix-up. Previous studies had reported on the brain hazards of Ecstasy, and the researchers said the problems with their study did not call into question the earlier ones. Scientists at Johns Hopkins University reported in September 2002 that key neurons in the brains of squirrel monkeys and baboons were damaged when the animals were given doses of Ecstasy that mimicked those often taken by users. [continues 196 words]
Re "Weeding out city's initiative," you couldn't be more wrong and right in the same editorial if you had tried. All we have to do is look at some countries that already have a so-called "no look" policy and see that it allows law enforcement to concentrate on more serious, violent and harmful crimes. Although medical marijuana was legalized in this state several years ago, patients still are being persecuted by our justice system. Where I agree 100 percent with you is where you said, " ... the national war on drugs is misconceived, cold-hearted and, ultimately, unworkable." It is this kind of initiative that will raise the level of education about cannabis, which many of us hope and pray will bring an end to this "misconceived, cold-hearted and, ultimately, unworkable drug war." Meril Draper, Brinnon [end]
Back in the day, if you mentioned Seattle, people elsewhere would think of the Space Needle, World's Fair, Seafair and the hydros, multiculturalism, Boeing and natural resources in a middle-class city near mountains, forests and water. When it came to politics, they'd think tough-minded activism and broad civic involvement crossing income, class, racial, ethnic and partisan lines. Now, if you ask folks elsewhere, they mention Bill Gates, Microsoft, high-tech wealth, a lively, high- and low-cultural scene in a rich-poor city near mountains, forests and water. Mention politics today and the associations are with the WTO meeting, Hempfest, political correctitude and narrow civic involvement except for self-seekers and a small group of activists. [continues 795 words]
WASHINGTON -- Ronald Reagan is generally recognized as the original "Teflon president." No matter what went wrong during his two-term presidency in the '80s, whether outside his control or not, he remained popular -- no allegation or bad news seemed to stick to him, as if he were treated with a non-stick coating. In Latin America, where growing disaffection toward democracy is further eroding public confidence in politicians, a new kind of Teflon presidency has emerged. Today, it is best personified by President Alejandro Toledo of Peru, but with a somewhat cruel twist: For Toledo, not even the best of news sticks. [continues 715 words]
Ah, the good old days. It seems like only yesterday I was a left-wing wacko. One column later -- one column siding with cops against Initiative 75 to keep marijuana illegal but make police ignore the law -- and I'm a right-wing, Bush-hugging, flag-waving conservative. Worse, I've hopped into bed with U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske and City Attorney Tom Carr. And I can tell you it's dang crowded in here and the guys are hogging the remote. [continues 700 words]
The Seattle City Council member salutes Initiative 75. That's the Sept. 16 ballot measure that would officially direct law enforcement officers to wink and walk on by when they see a citizen igniting a joint. The Seattle police officer has another kind of gesture in mind for the notion of leaving a law against marijuana on the books and then ordering him to look the other way. And, ta da!, the allegedly liberal mother and PC columnist sides with .. the cop. [continues 677 words]
Hempfest, the nation's largest annual festival promoting liberalization of marijuana laws, drew tens of thousands to the waterfront yesterday and Saturday - -- reaffirming Seattle's reputation as a pot-friendly place. "It's a welcoming city," Mikki Norris of the California-based Cannabis Consumers Campaign said yesterday, addressing the ultimate laid-back crowd -- men and women lying comfortably on Asian rugs and pillows under a giant tent made of hemp. For two days, the politics of pot pervaded Myrtle Edwards Park, demonstrating a momentum that most politicians can only dream of. [continues 633 words]
As every state faces a budget crisis and our Legislature repeals voter-approved initiatives to fill the budget gap, creative solutions are needed. A lucrative idea yet to be proposed is to legalize and tax marijuana. While seemingly a radical leftist idea, legalizing and taxing marijuana would not only help close the hole in the budget but also provide much-needed jobs and help to farmers. Domestically grown marijuana is the second largest cash crop in the United States, behind only corn. [continues 697 words]
In the 20th century, good old boring, gray Canada was ... well, who knows what it was? Not many Americans ever noticed or cared. But the 21st century Canada is a fast-breaking new story, going recently in a direction that has startled Canadians as much as it has everyone else. In May, Canadians still shaking off the effects of winter awoke one day to find the federal government had introduced a bill that will decriminalize possession of small quantities of marijuana, making it a trivial violation on par with getting a $150 traffic ticket. [continues 1614 words]
If "Pirates of the Caribbean" star Johnny Depp's kids want to smoke pot when they're older, they can count on dad to get it. Not that he wants them to. He doesn't. But as somebody with plenty of drugs in his past, he thinks that if his kids are going to try pot, they might as well try it at home, where the stuff has been quality tested and isn't laced with other drugs, such as PCP. [continues 149 words]
British Prime Minister Tony Blair's speech to Congress last week was masterful. He was inspirational, funny and leading us toward common ground. The common ground is what remains to be done in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both supporters and critics of the war ought to care about what happens now. "So if Afghanistan needs more troops from the international community to police outside Kabul, our duty is to get them," Blair said. "Let us help them eradicate their dependency on the poppy, the crop whose wicked residue turns up on the streets of Britain as heroin to destroy young British lives, as much as their harvest warps the lives of Afghans." [continues 286 words]
City Is One Of 25 Enlisted For Drive To Combat Problem WASHINGTON -- Calling the Seattle metropolitan area and 24 other major cities places of "missed chances and despair" in the war on drugs, the White House's senior anti-drug official outlined a program yesterday in which cities and the federal government would work more closely to stem the tide of illegal narcotics. John Walters, director of National Drug Control Policy, said he and his aides would travel to each of the 25 cities to find out what works, what doesn't and methods for improving collaboration between all levels of law enforcement. [continues 520 words]
Canada's health ministry yesterday approved North America's first sanctioned "safe injection site" for illegal drug users, a controversial project in Vancouver that the Bush administration has called "state-sponsored ... suicide." The facility, to be located in the heart of the B.C. port city's drug- and crime-ridden Downtown Eastside neighborhood, will provide a cliniclike setting where drug addicts can shoot up under the supervision of a registered nurse in a facility that offers a legal safe zone for drug users. [continues 576 words]
TAKOMA PARK, MD. - The Bard of Baltimore, H.L. Mencken, once defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy." He would have found quite a few of them in his home state in recent days, trying to keep demon weed away from the seriously ill. Shrugging off their pressures, Maryland's Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich signed a bill Thursday that, although it does not quite legalize the medicinal use of marijuana, does the next best thing. It reduces the maximum penalty for possession from a year in state prison and a $1,000 fine to a $100 fine in cases of "medical necessity," such as to relieve suffering from cancer treatment and other illnesses. [continues 572 words]
As Parliament reconvenes today, Canada's government is set to introduce legislation that would remove criminal penalties and substitute a simple ticket for those possessing small amounts of marijuana. The decriminalization bill is causing controversy -- in the United States. John Walters, the Bush administration's drug czar, has taken repeated pot shots at Canada's "out of control" drug policy. Up in the Great White North, however, polls show 70 percent of Canadians favor the pending reform. Why? Part of it is recognition that criminal penalties don't stop people from getting high. They just give them criminal records, and give politicians embarrassing questions to answer later in life. [continues 805 words]
The cacophony of breaking news often drowns out the big stories that actually affect daily lives. War, terrorism, murder, mayhem and sexual misdeeds monopolize the ink and airplay, to the detriment of huge issues tougher to headline. Eric Schlosser WHAT: Discusses "Reefer Madness" WHEN/WHERE: 2 p.m. tomorrow at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park; 7:30 p.m. Monday at Town Hall with tickets ($5) from The Elliott Bay Book Co. INFORMATION: 206-366-3333 (Third Place); 206-624-6600 (Elliott Bay) [continues 765 words]
King County is home to thousands of people addicted to heroin. Our societal response to their -- and our -- problem is extravagantly wasteful. Much of the harm caused by heroin addiction is harm to the community at large. For example, heroin addicts are involved in crimes to help pay for their drugs. And injection-drug use is associated with the spread of disease, including HIV infection. In response to heroin addiction in our midst, we dedicate significant public resources to police, prosecutors and defense lawyers, judges and juries and court personnel. We build, staff and maintain jails and prisons at great expense. [continues 536 words]
As a judge for the past 11 years, I've sentenced hundreds to prison for drug possession or delivery. Like many other Washington judges, I am troubled by the disproportionate effect the application of our drug laws has on people of color. The reasons are complex, but we must find solutions. This basic unfairness, coupled with the oppressive criminal justice costs to local and state budgets, makes it imperative to institute reforms that emphasize treatment. While national figures show that 72 percent of all illicit drug users are Caucasian, it's clear that the current "tough on drugs" sentencing structure in Washington state is most devastating to the African American community. Although they comprise only 3 percent of Washington's population, African Americans make up nearly one-third of all confined drug offenders. Judges often see this scenario: A young first-time offender, often a person of color, is charged with assisting a delivery of .2 of a gram of crack cocaine near a bus shelter. [continues 686 words]
Foods that contain hemp may be prohibited if a recent ruling by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration goes into effect later this month. The DEA decided in March to prohibit foods that contain traces of a substance called tetrahydrocannabinols, or THC. The psychoactive substance is found in marijuana, and a small amount is found in industrial hemp, though not enough to produce a high. It is illegal to grow hemp in the United States, but it is legally imported, usually from Canada, and used for a variety of purposes -- rope, clothing, paper, even food. Under the DEA's new ruling, though, consumption would be prohibited. [continues 649 words]
The state's new crime lab in Sodo is expansive, filled with natural light and room to examine evidence -- everything from bloodied T-shirts to bullet-ridden windowpanes. But there isn't enough money to fill it with forensic scientists. When the Seattle lab opened in December, state director Barry Logan was happy to finally have room for a full staff. That's needed, he said, to speed up work on new cases with suspects, reduce delays in processing DNA samples and tackle more cold cases. [continues 499 words]
Eugene Pair's Business Busted As Part Of DEA Sweep EUGENE, Ore. (AP)-- For six years, Jason Harris and Saeed Mohtadi sold glass smoking pipes entirely in the open in Oregon and over the Internet. Anyone could buy one of their pipes -- which are a kind commonly used for smoking marijuana -- at their Eugene store, Higher Source, or with a Visa card online. Harris and Mohtadi apparently believed the pipes, which were advertised for use with tobacco or incense, were legal. [continues 502 words]
Clallam 12th In Population But Sixth In Number Of Narcotics Cases LONGVIEW -- The faces of six women and six men -- some smiling, some sad -- cover a bulletin board in the back room of Olympic Drugs here. There's Anaise, Tina, Gail, Deborah, Jessica and Kristina. And Barry, Ronald, Donald, Heath, Luke and Leslie. Their Polaroid images, with names and birth dates scrawled underneath, are kept as a reminder that they tried to steal -- and as fodder for felony charges if they ever try it again. [continues 1069 words]
There is a war on the home front being waged against terror -- the war against methamphetamine that began last year in Snohomish County. An alarming article in the January issue of Rolling Stone shook citizens and leaders in Granite Falls because the national magazine profiled their fair city as the battleground for meth. However, Granite Falls is typical of the seriousness of the meth invasion as are Marysville, Arlington, Everett and all the county's rural areas. Meth has invaded our schools, tribes, neighborhoods and threatens our environment. Our jails are full of addicts and Snohomish County officials estimate that two-thirds of all crime can be linked to meth. The future drain on our health care system and emergency medical services needs to be addressed as meth users age and develop disabilities related to addiction. [continues 384 words]
The young men under investigation in connection with the beating of a disabled Port Hadlock man may have been trying to get his medical marijuana, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office says. The victim, 45, who was beaten as he sat in his wheelchair, remained in serious condition yesterday at Harborview Medical Center. He apparently suffered a blow to the back of the head from a baseball bat. Jefferson County investigators are uncertain what role three Chimacum High School students played in the attack, but deputies seized their car, which was seen leaving the disabled man's apartment complex. A 20-year-old man who was with the students is suspected of the attack and was booked into the Jefferson County Jail under investigation of assault and burglary. [end]
VANCOUVER, B.C. -- The door-kicking has stopped, as have the asset forfeitures and harassment. Chris Bennett hasn't been arrested in weeks, nor have any of his friends. Yet, the 40-year-old Bennett isn't inclined to say the battle is won. He's seen the police relax before. He's seen pot achieve a tenuous level of respectability when a more liberal-minded mayor or police chief takes over. And he's seen the subsequent backlash. "Every time we talk to the press, something happens," he said, sitting in the store he manages, The Marijuana Party Headquarters. [continues 1467 words]
An initiative that would make marijuana arrests and prosecutions the lowest priority for Seattle will head to the September 2003 ballot. The City Council declined yesterday to vote Initiative 75 into law or to offer an alternative measure. Instead, it chose to send the issue to voters next year. The initiative would require the Seattle Police Department and the City Attorney's Office to make cases involving adult personal use of marijuana the lowest priority for police. [end]
Even If Voters Move to Legalize up to 3 Ounces, Federal Law Supersedes LAS VEGAS -- Smoking tobacco in public places may be illegal in other states, but you can light up just about anywhere in Nevada. Need a drink? They're free in most casinos, as long as you gamble. Las Vegas Boulevard -- the aptly named Strip -- is crowded with hawkers handing out pictures of naked women who will come to your hotel room for a private strip tease or something more. Prostitution is legal in most parts of Nevada. [continues 747 words]
Coast Guard Details Cocaine, Marijuana Seizures In Past Year On a brisk day somewhere in the eastern Pacific Ocean in January, the 378-foot long, Seattle-based high-endurance Coast Guard cutter Midgett gave chase to a high-speed "go-fast" drug boat. The 925 pounds of cocaine seized after boarding the small, speedy drug boat, along with 733 pounds seized from another boat that tried to get past the Guard through speed rather than stealth eight days later, were among 46 1/2 tons of cocaine seized by Coast Guard units along the West Coast in the past year. [continues 295 words]
John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, was quoted in the Saturday P-I as saying, "Americans must confront drug use -- and therefore drug users, honestly and directly." I agree. Thoughtful people have agreed for years. In 1980 the Drug Abuse Council reported that "to state it plainly, the challenge facing America regarding drugs is to determine how best to live with the inevitable availability of psychoactive drugs while mitigating the harmful aspects of their misuse." Drug prohibition has had the same effects as alcohol prohibition had in the past century. Alcohol prohibition caused a rise in violent crime, injury to the population due to contaminated products, corruption of law enforcement and a breakdown of general respect for the law. Prohibition of alcohol caused a temporary drop in alcohol usage for the first five years, and then usage increased steadily every year after that until Prohibition was ended. When Prohibition was ended, violent crime dropped 65 percent in the following year. Drug usage has risen steadily during the past 10 years. The number of citizens who reported use of an illicit drug in the past month rose 11 percent in 2001, from 6.3 percent of all citizens over the age of 12 to 7.1 percent. Twenty percent of young adults regularly use an illicit drug, mostly marijuana. Eighty-eight percent of high school seniors report that it is easy to get drugs in their school. Our current approach does not prevent usage of drugs or access to drugs by schoolchildren. Rather, it is a waste of $40 billion a year. We need to ask ourselves if the ONDCP is being honest and direct with us when it insists that prohibition is an approach that works. Andrew Brunette Bellevue [end]
He Says Marijuana Advocates 'Living In A World Of Falsehoods' U.S. drug czar John Walters practically walked into the lion's den yesterday as he warned of the perils of marijuana in the Seattle area. Washington already has a voter-approved state statute that allows medicinal use of marijuana for a short list of chronic diseases. Seattle is just a three-hour drive from the Canadian province that not only has extremely lax enforcement for crimes involving marijuana but also produces tons of the most potent varieties in the world. [continues 590 words]
He Says Marijuana Advocates 'Living In A World Of Falsehoods' U.S. drug czar John Walters practically walked into the lion's den yesterday as he warned of the perils of marijuana in the Seattle area. Washington already has a voter-approved state statute that allows medicinal use of marijuana for a short list of chronic diseases. Seattle is just a three-hour drive from the Canadian province that not only has extremely lax enforcement for crimes involving marijuana but also produces tons of the most potent varieties in the world. [continues 586 words]
I sympathize with Santa Cruz, Calif., Mayor Christopher Krohn's marijuana dilemma ("Medical marijuana solutions needed," Sept. 25). His proposed solution, however, is wide of the mark. We don't need more legislation, but rather a repeal of some bad legislation. A colossal error was made in 1914 with the passage of the Harrison Act under the guidance of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. That error was compounded by passage of the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937, with the help of another religious fanatic, Harry Anslinger. To add insult to injury and even more nails in the coffin of civil liberties in this once free country, the Controlled Substances Act was passed in 1970. This last act placed marijuana in schedule one, the top security prison of drug schedules. [continues 127 words]
Psychedelic philanthropist and computer shareware pioneer Bob Wallace -- Microsoft Corp.'s ninth employee -- died at his San Rafael, Calif., home Friday. He was 53. During the past decade, Mr. Wallace championed such psychoactive drugs as MDMA, or Ecstasy, donating up to $350,000 a year to groups studying the drug. "MDMA seems to help reduce the fear people have of really looking at themselves, and it really helps people communicate well," Mr. Wallace told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in May. He said he had tried Ecstasy and felt it had "a lot of good therapeutic uses." He also felt the drug helped people feel compassion. [continues 417 words]
Ex-Guard Captain Was At Center Of 24-Year Legal Battle SPOKANE -- A former Washington Air National Guard pilot involved in a 24-year legal battle concerning his conduct and appearance in the military has been charged with smuggling marijuana from Canada. John "Country Doug" Edgar, 61, was being held without bail yesterday in the Spokane County Jail for investigation of federal drug-smuggling charges. Edgar was arrested Aug. 23 after landing his plane at the Deer Park Airport, about 20 miles north of Spokane in Stevens County. [continues 427 words]
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. -- City leaders plan to join medical marijuana users at a pot giveaway at City Hall next week. Their goal is to send a message to federal authorities that, in this town, medical marijuana is welcome. The invitation comes one week after agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration arrested the high-profile owners of a pot farm and confiscated 130 plants that had been grown to be used as medicine. "It's just absolutely loathsome to me that federal money, energy and staff time would be used to harass people like this," said vice mayor Emily Reilly, who with several colleagues on the City Council plans to help pass out medical marijuana to sick people from the gardenlike courtyard at City Hall on Tuesday. [continues 277 words]
"I'm coming down from speed," says the homeless man matter-of-factly, the way other people talk about needing coffee. At age 23, Adam Van Allen still looks fresh-faced enough for a college track team, except that the only race he's running is against his own addiction. Right now he needs a fix. So he sits on the sidewalk on Broadway, around the corner from a park known for its drug trade, asking people for spare change. But even if he begs enough money to feed the heroin and crystal meth habits that he says have taken control of his life, he needs one more thing -- a clean needle. [continues 1122 words]
Thank you for printing the article regarding the travesty that happened in Tulia, Texas ("Texas town has a one-man travesty of law enforcement," Aug. 30). This kind of mentality has to stop. I don't believe in the abuse of any drugs, legal or illegal. But the abuse of Americans' civil rights is a far worse crime. Just the fact that some of these people received up to 90 years is absurd. I for one am not happy about paying an average of $30,000 a year of my tax dollars for someone convicted of drug abuse and/or use. There are just way too many of them, especially when violent criminals get out on parole just to commit another violent crime. Last year, 800,000 were arrested nationwide just for marijuana. A lot of them were legal state medical patients. This is a great waste of our tax dollars and law enforcement. Meril Draper, Brinnon [end]
"Come out of the closet" about marijuana use was the theme of this year's Seattle Hempfest, the fragrant annual waterfront event. And at least several of the tens of thousands of festival-goers did come out of the closet. And went into jail. While Seattle police kept a low profile and commended Hempfest sponsors for an orderly, well-organized event Saturday and yesterday, it was clear that Initiative 75 -- a top political priority of the festival's promoters -- isn't law yet, if it ever will be. [continues 734 words]
An estimated 80,000 people packed Myrtle Edwards Park along Seattle's waterfront Saturday for the first day of Hempfest, a weekend festival aimed at changing the nation's marijuana laws. Seattle police were out in force for the event, but there was no shortage of joints, pipes or puffy clouds of pot. "This stuff never hurt nobody," said Bud Mack, 54, a Vietnam veteran who attended Hempfest with his daughter, Rainbow. Organizers said they expected a greater turnout than last summer, when 150,000 people attended. Hempfest is billed as the largest such event in the world, with protesters arguing for the decriminalization or legalization of marijuana. [continues 377 words]
Essentially cornered by its decision seven years ago that public school athletes could be subjected to random, suspicionless urine tests for drugs, the U.S. Supreme Court has used a Tecumseh, Okla., case to expand the list of student drug-testing targets to those involved in any extracurricular activity. Depending on one's point of view on drug abuse and the efficacy of random drug testing in deterring it, the court has either moved in the wrong direction or not far enough in the right direction. [continues 638 words]
King County Youth Who Turned In Dad On Drug Charges Struggles With Consequences Trever Palmer, 17, says he felt nervous and slightly heroic the night he picked up the phone, dialed 911 and informed the King County Sheriff's Office that his father was growing marijuana. Minutes later, when Aaron Palmer, a Covington computer programmer, returned home from an evening of swimming laps at the local pool, deputies arrested him. They later found more than a dozen marijuana plants growing in a hidden room in the garage and booked the single father of three into the King County Jail on drug charges. [continues 641 words]
BOGOTA, Colombia -- America's drug war is such a spectacular failure that a visitor from another planet might conclude that it's intentionally that way. Suppose that we asked President Bush if, for $8 billion or so each year (plus another $12 billion in state and local enforcement), he would be willing to finance a system that would ensure a violent black market network extending from virtually every U.S. urban neighborhood all the way to Mexico, Colombia and other parts of the world? Meanwhile, an additional goal would be, at least in the United States, to crowd our courts and prisons with people having health problems and those who prey on them. [continues 766 words]
Two Who Grew Medicinal Marijuana Given Probation BEND, Ore. -- Two men who grew marijuana for people with AIDS have been sentenced to probation by a Deschutes County judge. Eugene Stanley Carsey, 59, and Michael Keith Craven, 57, were sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty to delivering marijuana and frequenting a place where marijuana was sold, respectively. Carsey and Craven run a roadside attraction called the Funny Farm, which bills itself as a "park and playground of reuse and recycling." They are also the founders of the Central Oregon AIDS Support Team. The two men were arrested on Feb. 26 after police found evidence of a commercial marijuana sales operation on their property, including 3 1/2 pounds of the drug. Carsey said later that about half the so-called marijuana seized was actually catnip. [continues 86 words]
Dionne Warwick said a little prayer -- and got her marijuana-possession misdemeanor charge dropped on Wednesday. The state of Florida said the 61-year-old singer completed a pretrial program aimed at giving first-time offenders a second chance, so the case would be dismissed. Warwick also underwent medical tests to confirm she did not have a drug problem. The Grammy winner was charged in May in Miami when 11 marijuana cigarettes were found in her lipstick case. She says she is "puzzled about exactly what happened." Compiled by P-I reporter Ellen A. Kim. [end]
GIBSONS, B.C. -- In the 1960s, Americans dodging the draft settled in along the remote and rocky shores of Canada's Sunshine Coast. It was here where they began cultivating marijuana that would eventually become known as some of the most potent in the world. Nearly four decades later, Americans are once again migrating to the handful of small communities along the Sunshine Coast, drawn here not only by the ocean air and the stunning views of the snowcapped mountains, but by the very thing that lured the draft dodgers here: their frustration and disillusionment with the United States government. [continues 1335 words]
We know that illegal drugs do a great deal of harm -- to our bodies, our minds and our communities. But there's another harm associated with illegal drugs that more and more Americans are beginning to understand: The billions of dollars Americans spend on drugs each year are taking a horrific toll on some of the most fragile and diverse ecosystems on the planet. Consider the Andes and Amazonian regions of South America. In countries such as Colombia and Peru, astonishing environmental riches abound. The Huallaga region of Peru may be the world's richest in all forms of fauna, hosting record numbers of species among butterflies, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Colombia contains roughly 10 percent of the Earth's biodiversity, second only to Brazil. [continues 669 words]
The plaintiffs were as sympathetic as any who take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Don't kick us out of public housing because our relatives and caretakers have been caught with drugs, they pleaded. We didn't know, they said. We have no control over them, they said. All these things may well be true of the former Oakland Housing Authority tenants whose grandchildren smoked pot in a project parking lot, whose daughter was found with cocaine three blocks away and whose caretaker had cocaine inside an apartment. [continues 220 words]
Along with 18 members of the Legislature, I have joined a national coalition of hundreds of state legislators, physicians, religious leaders, medical organizations -- and such notables as Walter Cronkite, Hugh Downs and Milton Friedman -- to ask President Bush to allow seriously ill patients to have legal access to medical marijuana under federal law. This coalition published its request to the president in the form of a full-page ad in The New York Times on March 6. Bush, who campaigned as a "compassionate conservative," said during the 2000 campaign that states should be able to decide the medical marijuana issue "as they so choose." [continues 558 words]
It seems from reading the newspaper these days that there is nothing but bad news coming from Olympia, with headlines about budget deficits, cutbacks and gridlock. What may have been lost among the bad news is a courageous legislative achievement in bringing balance to our strategy against illegal drugs. With the passage of HB 2338, we have taken a huge step forward in reforming drug sentencing laws. The bill was sponsored in the House by Ruth Kagi, D-Lake Forest Park, and Ida Ballasiotes, R-Mercer Island, and in the Senate by Adam Kline, D-Seattle, and Jeanine Long, R-Mill Creek. [continues 654 words]
It is widely believed that for several decades now the American government has been waging a war against mind-altering drugs. The Drug Enforcement Administration, law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system all are charged with stopping American citizens from using mind-altering drugs. Perhaps as many as 1 million Americans are now being held in jail or prison on various drug charges. But our local, state and federal governments are not in fact against Americans using mind-altering drugs at all. Their efforts are aimed at stopping Americans from using certain illegal, mind-altering drugs such as heroin, cocaine and marijuana. [continues 705 words]
