CCUA Chronology of
Implementation
November 1996 through May 1999
by Fred Gardner and Pebbles Trippet ©
Introduction
1996
1997
1998
1999
When Prop 215 passed, many optimists thought it
would mean the beginning of the end of a destructive, costly prohibition.
They assumed
the significance of the vote was unmistakable —the people of California had told
the government to lay off citizens who were using marijuana for medical purposes.
These optimists clung to the naive belief that, America being a democracy, elections
results mattered.
But the passage of Prop 215 was viewed by Attorney General Dan Lungren,
as
a mistake to be rectified by law enforcement. He instructed police and
prosecutors to keep arresting and charging people who used marijuana, even if
they had the approval of a physician. Marijuana arrests in California actually
increased in 1997, according to the Bureau of Criminal Statistics, to 57,667 —up
for the sixth year in a row. Many doctors came to feel less willing to discuss
marijuana as a treatment option with their patients, as they feared
Lungren’s wrath and the attention of Janet
Reno’s Justice Department.
This chronology of the medical marijuana movement is for patients, caregivers
and concerned citizens who want a fuller, more coherent account than the corporate
media has provided. We apologize in advance for the incompleteness of the chronology.
We ask all participants in the movement to contact us ASAP to
fill in the blanks.
—Fred
Gardner and Pebbles Trippet
1996
Nov. 6 Attorney General Lungren sends a midnight fax to all California
law
enforcement officials; effective 12:01 a.m., The AG advises, “the focus in cases
involving potential marijuana violations should be on whether the medicinal use
defense is factually applicable.” The cop on the beat is
advised to “ask early whether the person is taking medication, what medication
for what condition, at which doctor’s direction, and the duration of treatment...
whether the individual is a patient or caregiver. If he/she says patient, then
ascertain name of doctor and caregiver. If caregiver, ascertain for whom, for
how long, and on what basis.”
Also 11/6 Bill Zimmerman’s “Californians for Medical Rights” renames
itself “Americans for Medical Rights” and announces plans to put medical marijuana
initiaitves on the ballot in five more states. Their Sacramento lobbyist boasts
that the organization consists of four people.
Nov. 7 The Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana is granted non-profit
status and an employer identification number by the California Secretary
of
State’s office. The articles of incorporation state that the Santa Cruz
organization “will research, prepare and disseminate reports prepared for either
the general public or the medical community based on information gathered directly
from patients using marijuana to treat their medical needs. WAMM will also ensure
that seriously ill patients have access at no charge to a safe supply of marijuana
as prescribed by a physician through propagation of verdure in conjunction with
community support. [“Verdure” is green-growing matter.]
Nov. 21 The Oakland Cannabis Buyers Club announces that its
membership
stands at “775 meticulously screened patients, and we are growing
carefully.” Proprietor Jeff Jones thanks the city council for resolving that
the “arrest of individuals involved with the medical use of marijuana shall be
a low priority for the city of Oakland.” Protocols developed by the Oakland CBC
are sent to clubs springing up around the state. Typically, a new member is required
to produce a written medical diagnosis —signed by his or her doctor on stationery
bearing a license number— recommending marijuana as a treatment. The club then
calls the doctor’s office to confirm the diagnosis.
December 1 MedEx Santa Cruz is established “to provide in-home delivery
of
safe and affordable cannabis.”
Dec. 3 Lungren convenes a special “All Zones Meeting” of DAs, sheriffs,
and police chiefs to lay out his approach to enforcement of Prop 215. “We think
the narrowest interpretation is the most appropriate,” Lungren tells the law
enforcers. “It would be our view that marijuana would not be available for
acne, hangnails, stress or arthritis.” [This is a revealing slip of the tongue,
since the initiative specifically sanctioned the use of marijuana in the treatment
of arthritis.] The AG proclaims his strategy: to prosecute marijuana cases
as vigorously as before; to put the burden of proof on defendants; and to require
their physicians to testify in open court. Lungren says he will go to Washington
to urge U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to enforce the federal laws against
marijuana use. San Francisco DA Terence Hallinan, the only open supporter
of Prop 215, is denied a chance to address the
session.
Dec. 4 Bill Zimmerman of Americans for Medical Rights tells
the
Sacramento Bee, “I think the attorney general is correct in arguing that the
initiative should be interpreted narrowly.” In Almador County, District
Attorney Steven Cilenti sends the following note to Judge Don Howard of the County
Judicial Court: “It is respectfully requested you dismiss the charges on the
above named defendant as defendant has medical reasons to possess
marijuana.” The sheriff subsequently mails back the patient’s two grams.
Dec. 17 In Sonoma County The People of California vs. Alan Edward Martinez
and Jason John Miller is heard in municipal court and the first attempt to
get a marijuana case dismissed on the basis of Prop 215 is promptly rejected
by Judge
Mark Tansil. The Defendants Alan Martinez, 40 —a nurse’s aide who has
epilepsy— and Jason Miller, 24, his primary caregiver, were arrested in August ’96
for cultivating marijuana in a windowsill planter box. Their lawyer, Bill
Panzer, moves for an “in camera” hearing to keep confidential the identity of
Martinez’s doctor; this, too, is rejected. “If the DEA withdraws
a doctor’s right to prescribe,” Panzer argues, “they lose their malpractice insurance,
their hospital privileges, and their ability to make an
income.” Tansil rules, “The court can’t grant this witness special immunity.
We must trust the system to deal fairly with this doctor and hope the doctor
is a strong enough person to do the right thing.”
Also 12/17 In Alameda County a defense motion to move the case of
People vs.
Dennis Peron and Beth Moore to San Francisco —where 43 of the 44 alleged violations
occurred— is denied by Judge Larry Goodman. This is the case stemming from the
Aug. 4 raid on the SF Cannabis Buyers Club, which led to indictment on possession
and transportation charges by an Alameda Grand jury.
Peron’s lawyer J. David Nick argued that the grand jury should be reconvened
to consider the “medical necessity” defense created by Prop 215, and that the
raid itself was an improper attempt to influence the vote on 215.
Dec. 19 The San Francisco club stages a “‘We Forgive You Love-In” at the Bureau
of Narcotics Enforcement office near Fisherman’s Wharf. Some 40 members sing
Christmas carols “in the spirit of the holidays, to forgive those in the BNE
for their acts of aggression against the sick and dying who have been harassed
and prosecuted for medical marijuana use...”
See the pot-filled bong before us!
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Makes you want to sing a chorus!
Fa la la la la, la la la la...
Lungren, in Washington, D.C., calls on Justice Department officials to
enforce the federal anti-marijuana laws.
Dec. 22 Thomas Constantine, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration,
threatens, “We are going to take very, very serious action
against” doctors recommending marijuana for medical purposes.
Feds Threaten California MDs
Dec. 30 Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, Attorney General Janet Reno and Health & Human
Services Secty Donna Shalala declare the Clinton Administration’s opposition
to the medical use of marijuana at a widely covered press conference. They
produce a chart entitled “Dr. Tod Mikuriya’s (215 Medical Advisor) Medical
Uses of Marijuana” Twenty-six conditions are listed. One is misspelled —”Migranes.” Three —”Removal
of Corns,” “Writer’s Cramp,” and “Recalling ‘Forgotten Memories”— simply do
not appear in the various
list of conditions Mikuriya has compiled. McCaffrey declares, “This
isn’t medicine, this is a Cheech and Chong show.” He warns that “a
practitioner’s action of recommending [marijuana]... will lead to administrative
action by the DEA to revoke the practitioner’s registration.”
Mikuriya calls the chart “a crude dirty trick —the kind of disinformation the
U.S. military put out during the Vietnam War, only in this case the ‘enemy’ is
the people of California.”
Lungren thanks McCaffrey and Reno for “quick action.”
Doctors are alarmed. “The war on drugs has become the war on physicians,” comments
Virginia Cafaro, MD, of San Francisco.
Dennis Peron says, “Good publicity for Cheech and Chong.”
1997
January 8 Superior Court Judge David Garcia rules that the passage of
Prop
215 entitles the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club —closed in August ’96—to
operate. Dennis Peron, Beth Moore, et al are allowed to provide
marijuana “for the personal medicinal use of persons who have designated the
defendants as their primary caregiver pursuant to Health and Safety Code
S11362.5.” Garcia tells the prosecutors from the Attorney General’s office “I
don’t think you or I are going to say that the people of California were totally
ineffectual in trying to pass a medical marijuana law. The defendants are ordered
to operate as a non-profit organization and to maintain records showing that
they have been designated as primary caregiver by members who have recommendations
from physicians.” Garcia also orders the defendants to “maintain records showing
monies expended and received as reimbursement of expenditures including overhead
for their activities relating to the provision
of medicinal marijuana.” The AG’s office says its will contest the ruling
that a club can be a caregiver under Prop 215.
Jan. 9 In Plumas County cultivation charges against Cinthia
Ann Powers —a multiple sclerosis patient who uses marijuana medically— are
dropped by
DA James Reichle who says, “After carefully looking at her situation, Powers
is a Proposition 215 case.” In Alameda County charges against Harold Sweet, a
glaucoma sufferer, are dropped.
Jan. 13 In response to criticism by doctors and scientists,
McCaffrey announces that his office will underwrite a $1 million study
of the medical potential of marijuana by the Institute of Medicine
(a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, whose function is to
give the government objective answers
to scientific questions).
Conant v. McCaffrey
Jan. 14 Several prominent Bay Area physicians and patients who
use marijuana for medical purposes sue McCaffrey, Reno, Shalala and DEA chief
Constantine in federal court for “effectively gagging physicians.” Conant v.
McCaffrey, a class-action suit on behalf of all California doctors and patients
who discuss marijuana as a treatment option, seeks to prevent the government
from prosecuting or threatening to punish doctors who recommend marijuana.
The suit, which is assigned to U.S. District Judge Fern Smith, charges that
the feds “have intruded into the physician-patient relationship, an area traditionally
protected from government interference.” The plaintiffs include doctors Marcus
Conant, Arnold Leff, Neil Flynn, Milton Estes, Stephen Follansbee, Stephen
O’Brien, Robert Scott, Debu Tripathy and Donald Northfelt; patients Jo Daly,
Keith Vines, Judith Cushner, and Valerie Corral; the Bay Area Physicians for
Human Rights; and Being Alive, an AIDS patient advocacy organization.
Jan. 15 The San Francisco Cannabis Cultivators Club reopens
for business at 1444 Market. The club requires members to produce a
letter of diagnosis but does not require a written recommendation for
marijuana. “We’re on the honor system here,” says Peron. “You tell
us your doctor
recommends marijuana and that’s fine with us.” Carpenters begin transforming
the basement of the club into an indoor greenhouse.
Jan. 30 An editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine —“Federal
Foolishness and Marijuana,” by Jerome Kassirer, MD, the
editor-in-chief— derides the U.S. government’s policy as “misguided,” “hypocritical,” “out
of step with the public,” and “inhumane.” The prestigious journal calls
for reclassifying marijuana from Schedule 1 (drugs of abuse with no therapeutic
value) to Schedule 2 (which includes drugs deemed medically useful despite being
potentially addictive, like and cocaine and codeine). Such a change would allow
doctors to prescribe
marijuana without fear of reprisal. Kassirer decries “the absolute power of bureaucrats
whose decisions are based more on reflexive ideology and political correctness
than on compassion.”
“I don’t think anyone wants to settle issues like this by plebiscite.” —Harold
Varmus
Also 1/30 (and probably not coincidentally) The director of
the National Institutes of Health, Harold Varmus announces a special
conference to
resolve “the public health dilemma” raised by the passage of Prop 215. “I
don’t think anyone wants to settle issues like this by plebiscite,” says Varmus,
calling instead for “a way to listen to experts on these topics.”
February 2 Dennis Peron calls on state legislators to end the
Campaign
Against Marijuana Production. “To ensure the availability of cheap and pure marijuana
to the patients who need it... stop the helicopter flyovers and seizures of marijuana
in the production areas.” CAMP commander Walt Kaiser
comments “We anticipate it will be business as usual. Prop 215 is an affirmative
defense —but people will have to prove in court that cultivated marijuana was
intended for a medical use.”
Feb. 6 “Bay Lawmaker Aims to Help Pot Law” —SF Examiner headline.
State Sen. John Vasconcellos announces that he will introduce
legislation to “help implement” Prop 215. Americans for Medical Rights claims
credit for helping to draft the so-called “enabling legislation.” Dennis Peron
is suspicious: “Prop 215 doesn’t need any help.”
Feb. 7 McCaffrey’s lawyer rejects any possibility of settlement
in
Conant v. McCaffrey, writing “Doctors cannot evade the prohibitions of the Controlled
Substances Act by claiming that they are merely providing their
patients with ‘recommendations.’”
Feb. 9 Marine Lance Cpl Jason Allen Miller, trained in beach
landing techniques, is caught delivering a half ton of marijuana by
speedboat from Tijuana to a San Diego beach. Miller was found to be
working for a San Diego family with Marine Corps connections (Gringos,
by the way; corruption practices “diversity”) ...A nationwide poll
financed by the Lindesmith Center finds
2-to-1 support —or greater— for allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana for seriously
or terminally ill patients.
Feb. 11 A hit piece in The New Republic entitled “The
Return of
Pot”informs our leaders inside the Beltway that renewed propaganda is required
to discredit the medical marijuana movement. The disdainful impressions of author
Hannah Rosin—who flew out from the east for a whirlwind tour of a few clubs and
an overview from Bill Zimmerman— are cited by pundits as factual
data. “As Hanna Rosin reports in the current issue of the New Republic, the clubs
are peopled not by the desperate terminally ill but by a classic cross-section
of California potheads, all conveniently citing some diagnosis or
other —migraines, insomnia, stress- as their tickets to Letheland.” —Charles
Krauthammer in the LA Times.
Feb. 15 DEA agents question family doctor Robert Mastroianni
of Pollack Pines, who has recommended marijuana to three seriously
ill patients since the passage of Prop 215. The local pharmacist says
he has also been contacted by the DEA. Mastroianni says the effect
has been intimidating. “I am now reticent and reluctant to recommend
the use of medical marijuana even if it is my ethical
duty to do so.”
Feb. 19-20 The conference of experts sought by Harold Varmus
is convened by Alan Leshner of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The experts conclude that the safety and efficacy of marijuana with
respect to many
illnesses is unproven.
“Analgesia: No clinical trials involving smoked marijuana have been performed
in patients with naturally occurring pain... Neurological and movement disorders:
Evidence that marijuana relieves spasticity produced by multiple sclerosis and
partial spinal cord injury is largely anecdotal... There is scant information
on the use of marijuana or other cannabinoids for the actual
treatment of epilepsy... Nausea and Vomiting Associated With Cancer Chemotherapy:
Since the approval of dronabinol in the mid 1980s, more effective antiemetics
have been developed, such as ondansetron, granisetron, and dola-setron, each
combined with dexamethasone. The relative efficacy of canninoids versus these
newer antiemetics have not been evaluated.... Appetite Stimulation: Marijuana
is reported to increase food enjoyment and the number of times individuals eat
per day... There are no controlled studies of marijuana in the AIDS wasting syndrome,
nor have there been any systematic studies of the effects of marijuana on immunological
status in HIV-infected patients.”
The experts call for “more and better studies.”
Feb. 22 Orange County fires an equipment operator who used marijuana
as a treatment for glaucoma. Rob Dunaway, 38, of Mission Viejo, was
diagnosed with glaucoma at 19 and for 15 years has smoked a small amount
of marijuana after
work -never before or during, he says. “It’s heartbreaking,” says Dunaway. “I
love my work. It’s what I’ve done all my life.”
Feb. 23 The Internal Revenue Service rules that taxpayers cannot deduct
the cost of marijuana as a medical expense because it is a Schedule
I drug and cannot be legally prescribed. The ruling means that employee
benefit packages cannot cover marijuana expenses. In the same ruling,
1997-9 I.R.B.1, the agency announces that the cost of Laetrile, a substance
derived from apricot pits to which desperate cancer patients sometimes
turn, can no longer be deducted as a
medical expense.
Lungren’s Guidelines
Feb. 24 The Attorney General’s Office issues guidelines for law enforcement
officers in response to Prop 215. Patient Qualifications are defined
as follows. “1. Patients must be California residents. Out-of-state residents,
temporary visitors or foreign nationals without legal residence in the U.S. are
not covered... 2. Patients must be seriously ill. Minor injuries, colds, common
flu, most skin cancer, stress, etc., are not covered. 3. The patient must have
had an examination by a physician, and the physician must have determined that
the specific patient’s health would benefit from marijuana as a treatment for
the specific illness. 4. The patient must not be engaged in behavior that endangers
others such as driving a vehicle, working with dangerous equipment, or being
under the influence in public. 5. The patient cannot be involved in any diversion
of marijuana for nonmedical purposes... 6. Patients cannot cultivate or possess
amounts geater than necessary for their personal medical needs. This precludes
commercial and most cooperative style operations. Questioning by an officer should
help determine whether the amount is consistent with what was recommended by
the doctor for what length of time and for what illness. By way of example, if
the patient is undergoing chemotherapy treatment for 30 days and the basis for
the recommendation is to combat nausea caused by the therapy, then a supply greater
than 30 days is more than necessary for medical use. Note: one marijuana plant
produces approximately one pound of bulk marijuana. One pound will make approximately
1,000 cigarettes. Therefore, one can argue that more than two plants would be
cultivation of more than necessary for personal medical
use.”
The Guidelines state that cannabis clubs cannot qualify as primary caregivers
under the law. “Although they may be supplying marijuana for medical purposes,
they would not qualify as being primarily and consistently responsible for
the
housing, health or safety of the patient.”
Tod Mikuriya says, “The response of organized medicine has been shameful.
They are more interested in relaying the federal threats to their members
than in protecting them, let alone seeing that a safe and effective
medicine is
available to patients.”
Feb. 27 The federal government seems to relent in response to
Conant v.
McCaffrey. A letter from the Dept. of Health & Human Services and the Dept.
of Justice to 250 medical organizations and groups in the U.S. states, “Nothing
in federal law prevents a physician, in the context of a legitimate physician-patient
relationship, from merely discussing with a patient the risks and alleged benefits
of the use of marijuana to relieve pain or alleviate
symptoms.” The letter warns, however, “physicians may not intentionally
provide their patients with oral or written statements to enable them to obtain
controlled substances in violation of federal law... The CMA and AMA urge Conant
et al to drop their lawsuit. CMA attorney Alice Mead “recommends that physicians
not sign or complete those forms [patients’ forms related to marijuana use] and
that they should not prepare their own
similar forms.” Tod Mikuriya says, “The response of organized medicine
has been shameful. They are more interested in relaying the federal threats to
their members than in protecting them, let alone seeing that a safe and effective
medicine is available to patients.”
March 1 Mountain View police return six plants and some
growing equipment seized from Edward Willis, a 43-year-old electrician
with AIDS. “We respect the voters’ call. In certain circumstances,
upon a doctor’s
recommendation, we will honor a patient’s right to use marijuana for medical
purposes,” said Santa Clara County Assistant DA Karyn Sinunu (a veteran prosecutor
who says she reconsidered her own position after watching a friend undergoing
treatment for stomach cancer obtain relief by smoking marijuana).
Willis’s doctor, Deborah Shih of Kaiser Santa Calara Hospital, had provided him
a letter stating she would consider prescribing marijuana for him if she were
legally able to do so.
March 11 San Jose city attorney Joan Gallo unveils a proposed
ordinance to regulate the locations and operations of medical marijuana
facilities The city would allow “medical marijuana dispersaries” to
operate only in commercial areas, away from schools, churches and daycare
centers, and smoking of medical marijuana would not be permitted on
the premises.” Dave Fratello of
AMR applauds the city for “sensible regulation.” Dennis Peron says, “They want
to put us alongside the porno shops. Would they tell a doctor or a pharmacist
where they can or can’t have an office?” Robert Niswonger, who was planning
to open the Santa Clara County Cannabis Club at his home, which is near an elementary
school, is advised to find another location.
Also 3/11 The Wall St. Journal runs a commentary by Gabriel Nahas,
MD, and
three colleagues, “Marijuana Is the Wrong Medicine,” taking issue with
Kassirer’s NEJM editorial. Nahas flat out denies that marijuana relieves pain. “If
Kassirer means to imply that marijuana is analgesic, he is simply
wrong.”
March 17 Leaders of the California Medical Association and the
American Medical Association urge a settlement of Conant v. McCaffrey
in a letter to the plaintiffs and the feds. The CMA issues guidelines
to its members, advising that a doctor can discuss the risks and benefits
of pot as medicine and document the
discussion in the patient’s record, but should not make a recommendation on whether
to use mj, should remind patients that it remains illegal under federal law,
and should not help patients get marijuana from buyers’ clubs.
March 18 Los Angeles prosecutors dismiss the case of an AIDS patient
charged with marijuana possession. Willie Perkins, 35, had a written diagnosis
from a doctor at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center acknowledging the possible benefits
of marijuana. “Reviewing the spirit of the law... we decided to dismiss this
case,” says Deputy City Attorney Jerry Baik.
March 25 The San Jose City Council becomes the first California entity
to
officially monitor and permit the distribution of medical marijuana. Peter
Baez and Jesse Garcia announce they will be opening soon at a site on San Carlos
Street... Mendocino County DA Susan Massini warns growers that contracts with
cannabis clubs will provide no legal protection. “They will not be immune from
felony prosecution even though they’ve reached a contract with an organization
that may be perceived in San Francisco as being legal,” Massini says. Sheriff
Jim Tuso says his deputies will continue to arrest growers and confiscate their
product even if they have contracts with a medical marijuana sales outlet. Humboldt
County Sheriff’s Sergeant Steve Knight adds, “We’ve been instructed from our
district attorney that a contract with the San Francisco cannabis club is not
going to prevent us from taking the marijunana and arresting the person for cultivation
or possession for sale.” Dennis Peron contends that patients can name a cannabis
buyers club as “their primary
caregiver with respect to providing marijuana” and that the club can reassign
the right to cultivate marijuana to a grower.
April 5 The new Ukiah Cannabis Club begins registering members at
the Forks Theater, 40 Pallini Lane... Proprietor Cherrie Lovett, a
lupus patient, says “It’s gonna be small and it’s gonna be really low
key, but I want all sick
people to come and be a family.” The theater is owned by Marvin and Millie Lehrman,
who also help run the club.
April 9 Jeff Webb of Oroville is arrested after being stopped by the
CHP for a license plate violation near the Yuba/Sutter county line. Webb informs
the officer that he and his wife are primary caregivers delivering medical
marijuana to patients. Three small bags of pot with SF Cannabis Club seals
are found in the car (less than 2 ounces). Webb is arrested and charged with
transportation
and possesion for sale. CHP captain Fred Steisberg says “Just having a card and
a sticker on the bag isn’t enough. We define the terrm ‘primary
caregtiver’ as someone who provides housing, care and safety for the
patient.” [Prop 215 defines primary caregiver as someone who provides housing,
care or safety...]
April 10 A warrant is issued for the arrest of Jean Baker, 39,
the director of the Humboldt Cannabis Action Network, after she fails
to appear in
court on cultivation charges. Baker says county law enforcement officials
are punishing her for negotiating cultivation contracts with local growers. Deputy
DA Worth Dikeman says Baker was observed in September at a site where marijuana
was later found growing. Sheriff Dennis Lewis says that under
Prop 215 “Patients and caregivers can grow for personal use, but there’s no mention
made of proxies growing large fields for clinics or clubs.”
DEA Raids Flower Therapy
April 21 At 6:30 a.m. federal DEA agents break down the door of San
Francisco’s Flower Therapy club, seize 331 marijuana plants along with lights,
fans and cash. DEA spokesman Stan Vegar says, “The federal statutes state that
cultivation of marijuana —and in this case, high-level, sophisticated, large-scale
indoor marijuana cultivation- is illegal. Prop 215 simply did not change federal
law and it did not change the San Francisco DEA’s interest in these types of
cases.” Proprietor John Hudson says the club will stay open for
business. “This is a futile attempt to try and harass the medical marijuana
movement.” San Francisco DA Terence Hallinan, who was not notified in advance
of the raid, calls it politically motivated. (Federal drug cases usually involve
tons, not pounds of marijuana.) Hallinan urges U.S. Attorney Michael Yamaguchi
not to prosecute the Flower Therapy staff, offering to “testify to the fact that
this group was trying to comply with the law in the state of
California.” Dennis Peron accuses rogue DEA agents of “attempting to derail
Yamaguchi’s nomination for federal judge (by putting him in the political bind
of being damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t prosecute the Flower Therapy
staff)... Also 4/21 Senator Lauch Faircloth (R-NC) introduces a bill, S40, that
would mandate an eight-year prison term for doctors who recommend marijuana,
as well as revocation of their DEA registration.
April 30 Judge Fern Smith —a Reagan appointee— grants
a
preliminary injunction in Conant v. McCaffrey “limiting the government’s ability
to prosecute physicians, revoke their prescription licenses, or bar their participation
in Medicare and Medicaid because they recommend medical use
of marijuana.” In a 43-page opinion she writes, “The First Amendment allows physicians
to discuss and advocate medical marijuana, even though use of marijuana itself
is illegal... The government’s fear that frank dialog between physicians and
patients about medical marijuana might foster use does not justify infringing
First Amendment freedoms... Defendants may only prosecute physicians who recommend
medical marijuana to their patients if the physicians are liable for aiding and
abetting or conspiracy under these statues.” Plaintiffs’ attorney Graham Boyd
gloats that doctors can now, “recommend it, they can have discussions with their
patients and they can do what doctors normally do, but they cannot help them
obtain marijuana. They cannot fill out
recommendations... They really shouldn’t take calls from the clubs.” (In
fact doctors “normally” write prescriptions and tell their patients where they
can get them filled. More accurate than the lawyers’ self-congratulation is Judge
Smith’s own conclusion: “This injunction does not provide physicians with the
level of certainty for which they had hoped.”)
May 1 An arrest warrant is issued for a Mountain View man who
obtained pot from the Santa Clara County Medical Cannabis Center using
a forged
prescription form. Director Peter Baez alerted authorities.
May 14 Researchers from Kaiser Permanente in Oakland and the
University of California School of Public Health in Berkeley publish
results of a study
that examined the records of more than 65,000 members of the Kaiser health
plan for an average of 10 years. Some 14,000 of the members said they were marijuana
users between 1979 and 1985. A decade later the death rates of both subgroups
were identical. Lead author Dr. Stephen Sidney warns that “marijuana can lead
you into situations of risky sex.” Also, “The criminalization of marijuana use
may itself be a health hazard, since it may expose the consumer to violence and
criminal activity.” The authors cited “reasonable evidence” for marijuana’s effectiveness
against nausea and in treating glaucoma.
May 20 Marines on a drug interdiction patrol near Redford Texas shoot
and
kill 17-year old Esequiel Hernandez Jr., a goatherd (and US citizen).
June 1 A hearing judge in Santa Cruz refuses to dismiss People v.
Elm. Sue Ellen Elm was charged with cultivation and possession
for sale. She moved for dismissal of the cultivation charge on the
basis of Health and Safety Code
section 11362.5. As described by the “Update” compiled by the AG’s
office, “Defendant offered a letter from her psychiatrist which asserted (1)
that defendant suffered from Dysthemia [mild depression]; (2) that defendant
was using marijuana as treatment; and (3) that defendant had medical reasons
for her use of marijuana. On the strength of these assertions, defendant argued
that she
was not subject to any criminal prosecution. The court found that section
11362.5 applied only to ‘seriously ill’ California residents, and that the court
may determine (1) whether a person is seriously ill; and (2) whether marijuana
use is medically appropriate for that person.” The judge said
the psychiatrist’s letter was insufficient evidence.
June 6 Preliminary hearing in the People v. King in Tulare
County. The case involves cultivation of 30 plants by a cancer patient
named Mike King, 52, a former deputy sheriff who was severely injured
when his patrol car was hit by a train (while he was pursuing a suspect).
After many back operations and unrelenting pain, somebody recommended
that King try marijuana “and he abandoned his longtime War on Drugs
attitude and sure enough it was the thing that made it possible for
him to lead a reasonably normal life,” says his lawyer, William
Logan.
July 1 Nicasio podiatrist Alan Ager goes on trial in Marin County
on
charges he was growing 134 plants in his yard. Ager’s defense: he smoked pot
to deal with back pain and was seeking to lay in a year’s supply.
July 3 Al Martinez is killed when his car swerves off Bodega
Highway, probably the result of an epileptic seizure. Martinez had
been off marijuana since his arrest on cultivation charges, according
to his lawyer. “The first death directly caused by government resistance
to implementing Prop 215,” says
Pebbles Trippet. “They scared him out of taking his life-saving medicine. He
feared they were going to use it against him in the prosecution.”
July 29 Cancer patient Todd McCormick is arrested by LA sheriff’s
drug investigators for growing 4,000 plants in an old Bel Air residence.
McCormick is held on $500,000 bail, which Woody Harrelson posts for
him.
McCormick says he was growing different strains “so I could do research on my
own body” and against the day he would be too weak to do so.
August 4 Criminal defense lawyer Tony Serra sends out a press
release revealing that he uses marijuana as an anti-stress medication
and is a member of
the SF Cannabis Club. Serra says he’s going public to encourage fellow lawyers
and others in “high stress lifestyles” to “come off the booze and get on the
cannabis.”
August 12 Scott Summers of Santa Margarita tells Narcotics
Task Force agents he had a contract signed by Dennis Peron to grow
pot for the SF
club. Summers will later plead no contest.
August 15 In People vs. Trippet, the First district court
of Appeals rules that Prop 215 protects transportation of marijuana
for personal use and that it applies retroactively. Trippet was appealing
conviction in a 1995 Contra Costa case in which she had been found
with marijuana in her car and convicted for transportation. The court
ruled that Prop 215 creates an “implied defense” for transporation. “The
voters could not have
intended that a dying cancer patient’s primary caregiver could be subject to
criminal sanctions for carrying otherwise legally cultivated and possessed marijuana
down a hallway to the patient’s room.” Judge Paul Haerle also commented on the
question of allowable quantity: “The statute does not mean that a person who
claims an occasional problem with arthritis pain just in case it suddenly gets
cold. The rule should be that the quantity possessed by the patient, and the
form and manner in which it is possessed, should be reasonably related to the
patient’s current medical needs.” The court ordered a retrial
for Trippet.
August 18-19 The civil trial of Dennis Peron, Beth Moore et
al, begins in San Francisco with Superior Court Judge J. Albert Robertson
II presiding. Senior Assistant Attorney General John Gordnier successfully
moves to prevent a
jury trial and to block Dan Lungren’s appearance as a witness. Peron hopes to
prove that Lungren’s closure of the club in August ’96 was motivated by political
opposition to Prop 215. The case is a civil matter involving the operation of
a public nuisance as defined by state law. Peron also faces criminal charges
with a different set of co-defendants in Alameda County in connection with the
purchase and transportation of marijuana for his club... 18/20 The defense is
granted a continuance (which it had sought because all the key rulings had gone
against them).
August 22 The Ager case ends in a hung jury (10-2 to convict). The
Marin
DA’s office will subsequently announce its intention to retry him.
August 26 “Conservative Attorney General Lungren and liberal
lawmaker John Vasconcellos stood shoulder-to-shoulder Tuesday to announce
they
had agreed on a three-year state study of marijuana.” —The SF Examiner. At
a press conference with a smiling Vasco and Carol Migden (co-sponsor of the bill),
Lungren accepts congratulations from the liberals. The AG’s support for this
bill, Vasco says, “is a remarkably fine example of how the people and the government
can work together.” Papers across the state play up the
story. As the Santa Cruz Sentinel observes, “Lungren comes off as
the politician who listened to the people, who put the rhetoric aside, and went
for the truth.”
October 8 UCSF Professor Donald Abrams —after years of
seeking approval, funding and government marijuana to study whether
or not cannabis use
leads to weight gain in AIDS patients— gets the green light and $1 million from
the NIH. Abrams’s grant-winning protocol now emphasizes safety questions (whether
or not there is an impact on the immune system, viral load and hormone levels,
and whether THC affects protease inhibitor metabolism). The study will involve
three groups of 21 patients. Each group will stay in a specially ventilated wing
of SF General Hospital for three weeks. One group will smoke mj, one will receive
Marinol, and the third will be given a placebo tablet.
Oct. 14 CAMP concludes its 9-week raiding party. A prss release
from
the Attorney General’s office quotes Lungren, “‘The value of the plants confiscated
this year underscores that the passage of Proposition 215 should in no way curtail
law enforcement’s efforts to interdict marijuana.’” The
release continues: “The 132,485 plants if grown to maturity, could have been
processed into about 66 tons of marijuana... that is more than 120 million marijuana
joints that will not be rolled, smoked and potentially offered to children...
Lungren stressed that the marijuana trade is growing larger and is being infiltrated
by Mexican nationals, who are already heavily involved in the methampethamine
trade... The plants seized during this operation were never intended to be used
for medicinal purposes.” CAMP claims to have discovered 676 cultivation sites,
arrested 54 suspects, and seized 25 weapons and $1,300 in cash. Of the 260 raids,
222 were in Humboldt, Mendocino and Sonoma counties...
Dennis Peron comments, “Lungren managed to use the words ‘marijuana,’ ‘Mexican’ and ‘methamphetamine,’ in
one sentence.” Raids in Santa Cruz County dropped from 45 to five as the
Sheriff’s Office reduced the
number of days devoted to surveillance.
Is Stress “Serious?”
Oct. 14 Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Harry Hull rules that
defendant Richard Hearth can’t introduce into evidence a doctor’s recommendation
obtained 11 months after his arrest for cultivation and possession of marijuana.
Hearth had called the police to his house after three of his seven plants were
ripped off in September, 1996. He was then arrested for cultivation and possession.
In August 1997 he obtained a letter from Dr. Eugene
Schoenfeld stating, “I have evaluated Mr. Richard Hearth and find that he has
been using marijuana for medicinal purposes for at least five years. I recommend
that he continue using marijuana as needed for anxiety. This recommendation is
valid until November 30, 1997.” Deputy District Attorney Michael Blazina
argued that “a physician’s recommendation pursuant to Prop 215 must occur prior
to defendant’s cultivation and possession.” The prosecution also
argued that “defendant’s anxiety is not a sufficient illness to qualify for proposition
215 protection,” citing ballot arguments which refer to “seriously and terminally
ill patients.” Schoenfeld —who in
the ’60s wrote a column for the Berkeley Barb under the name “Dr. Hip,” and in
the ’80s directed a drug and alcohol rehab center in Salinas— had testified that
Hearth suffers from chronic and situational anxiety and situational depression
for which marijuana could provide relief. Judge Hull rules that Hearth
was relying on “an approval given primarily to create, after the fact, a defense
to a criminal prosecution... Further, I find that the ‘illness’ for which Dr.
Schoenfeld prescribed the past and future use of marijuana was not one within
the contemplation of the voters at the time they
approved this law.”
Oct. 15-18 The Drug Policy Foundation holds its 11th annual
meeting in
New Orleans. The Edward Brecher Journalism Award goes to Garry Trudeau
and the Richard J. Dennis Drugpeace Award for outstanding achievement in the
field
of drug policy reform to state senator John Vasconcellos.
Oct. 16 San Mateo County Supervisor Mike Nevin suggests that
the county establish medical marijuana outlets at local clinics and
distribute marijuana
seized by law enforcement.
Oct. 17 Alameda County Superior Court Judge Dean Beaupre sends the
criminal
case against Dennis Peron et al back to San Francisco to avoid “the appearance
of improper forum-shopping” by the Attorney General. Only one of the 44 illegal
acts the defendants allegedly committed took place in Alameda County —Peter Vouhoue
had been followed to Oakland and arrested there after delivering marijuana to
the SF Cannabis Club.
Oct. 17-18 Proprietors from 15 cannabis clubs meet in Santa
Cruz to seek agreement on basic principles of operation. Scott Imler
of the Los Angeles CBC is the prime organizer of the conference, which
also drew representatives from clubs getting off the ground, as well
as about 100 interested observers. .
Oct. 21 Marin County Supervisors John Kress and Steve Kinsey
propose an ordinance to allow the county to give out certificates to
people who have verified illnesses that a licensed clinician deems
appropriate to treat with marijuana. The cards would be valid for a
year and cost $25. County Health director Thomas Peters says he will
take feedback on the proposal for one month and then bring it back
to the board for a vote... The Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement lowers
its hiring requirement from four years of college to two; investigative
experience is no longer required.
Oct. 28 Officers from the sheriff’s department raid the Monterey County
Medical Marijuana Care Center, seizing seven grams of marijuana and
the medical records of more than 100 members... The club will subsequently
close.
November 5 On prime time TV, Murphy Brown, diagnosed with breast
cancer, smokes marijuana to deal with the effects of chemotherapy.
The Year of Bittersweet Expansion
In which the original organizers defend themselves in California courts while
the medical marijuana movement goes national, funded by enlightened capitalists
and guided by a “professional” campaign consultant from Santa Monica.
Nov. 11 Steve Michael of ACT UP! - Washington, D.C., sponsor of a
medical marijuana initiative that has already collected 12,000 signatures, protests
AMR’s plan to sponsor a separate measure. “I am angered that the California-based
Americans for Medical Rights would actively undermine the efforts of DC
AIDS activists working to qualify a medical marijuana
initiative in our community... The AMR crowd has hired a K Street PR firm
and is currently calling on community groups throughout the District of Columbia
to convince people to support their effort... This has been a long and draining
campaign. I have been frustrated by the leadership of the drug policy movement
time and time again. With a few exceptions they’ve ignored our requests
for help, even the simple things, like postage, printing, signs,
volunteers. We’ve been left twisting in the wind”
Activist Lin Hagood adds: “It’s like the AMR crowd is afraid that if
we prevail they won’t be able to cash in on our effort. We are going
public in the hope that those who funded the California Initiative drive like
Mr. George Soros learn of our poverty status and will bypass the fat cat AMR
gatekeepers and help the DC community activist based effort to secure legal
and
safe access for medical marijuana to serious ill Washingtonians. I can’t
believe Soros has anything to do with the secret campaign by AMR to crush Initiative
57.”
Nov. 28 The DEA announces that state, local and federal agents
confiscated more than 553,000 plants in California during the ’98 growing
season. (In ’96 the figure was 351,000.) More than a quarter of the
total came from Mendocino County. CAMP seized 132,000 plants -40% more
than in ’96. Agent Bill Ruzzmenti suggests that Prop 215 misled the
growers. “There is a misconception out there that growing marijuana
is somehow legal, and it’s
not.”
Dec. 9 The American Medical Association’s policymaking
committee calls for free discussion between doctors and patients about
marijuana as a treatment option, and clinical trials of its possible
benefits.
Dec. 12 The First District Court of Appeals rules that under
the terms
of Prop 215, sales are illegal and clubs can’t be primary caregivers. Attorney
General Dan Lungren immediately notifies the district attorneys in
California’s 58 counties that they can now move against the clubs: “When the
issue of whether so-called ‘buyers’ clubs’ could be primary caregivers under
Proposition 215 arose, this office sought to resolve the issue through the judicial
process. It was our opinion that California’s citizens had approved a narrow
measure that clearly did not contemplate sales of marijuana through ‘clubs...’ Many
of you have clubs operating in your jurisdiction. This letter is to advise you
of the ruling in People v. Peron so that you can prepare to take appropriate
action. If you have any questions or need assistance with this issue, please
contact either George William-son or John Gordnier.” Dennis Peron
comments, “Democracy itself is under attack here. The judges are calling the
voters fools. They nullified the vote, essentially.”
Dec. 14-16 Investigators from the Institute of Medicine conduct a “Basic
and Clinical Science Workshop” on the UC Irvine campus as part of an
18-month
study commissioned by Barry McCaffrey’s National Office on Drug Control Policy.
The IOM study is being conducted by two MD investigators —Stanley J. Watson,
Jr. a mild-mannered research psychiatrist from the University of Michigan and
John A. Benson, Jr., a silver-haired, bow-tie-wearing professor emeritus from
Oregon Health Sciences University. The study director, Janet E. Joy, has a PhD
in biology. Patients and caregivers sharing their experience and observations
included Bill Britt, Peter McWilliams, Todd McCormick, Anna Boyce, Dr. Del Dalton,
Marvin Chavez, Etienne Fontan (Cannabis Alliance of Veterans), Andrew Kinnon,
Kenneth Smuland, Vic Hernandez, Bonnie Metcalf of the Yuba County Compassionate
Use Co-op, Jo Anna Mckee (Green Cross Patient
Co-op, Seattle), Jeff Jones, Dale Gieringer, and Chris Conrad (author of
Hemp for Health).
The IOM team then heard from researchers describing the basic science,
as currently understood, and the prospects of cannabis as a treatment for a
remarkably wide range of conditions. It exerts its effects by acting on receptors
in the brain and elsewhere that respond to the body’s own “cannabinoids.” The
line-up:
“Neuropharmacology of Cannabinoids and their Receptors” by Steven R. Childers,
Wake Forest University School of Medicine; “Precipitated Cannabinoid Withdrawal
and Sensory Processing of Painful Stimuli” by J. Michael Walker,
Brown University; “Role of Cannabinoids in Movement” by Clara Sanudo, Brown
University; “Tolerance and Cannabinoid-Opioid Interactions” by Sandra Welch,
Medical College of Virginia; “Immune Modulation by Cannabinoids” by Norbert Kaminski,
Michigan State University; “Marijuana and Glaucoma” by Paul Kaufman, University
of Wisconsin; “Effects of Marijuana and Cannabinoids in
Neurological Disorders” by Paul Consroe, University of Arizona Health Science
Center; “Neural Mechanisms of Cannabinoid Analgesia,” by Howard Fields,
UCSF; “Wasting Syndrome Pathogenesis and Clinical Markers” by Donald Kotler,
St. Lukes’-Roosevelt Hospital; “Clinical Experience with
Marijuana” by Stephen O’Brien, East Bay AIDS Center; “Marijuana in AIDS
Wasting: Tribulations and Trials” by Donald Abrams, UCSF; and “Marijuana is Different
From THC: A Review of Basic Research and State Studies
of Antibyemesis” by Richard E. Musty, University of Vermont.
Dec. 17 In Sonoma County charges are dropped against Nancy Maffei,
who used marijuana in treating lupus, a disease involving inflammation
of the connective tissue. Symptoms can include joint pain, skin lesions
and fever.
Maffei’s caregiver Bob Sullens, who was growing 24 plants on her behalf, pleads
no contest to possession of less than an ounce and pays a $100 fine.
Also 12/17 Concluding that the negative mental-health effects of cannabis
have been exaggerated, and that the prohibition has been ineffective, and that “the
police are open-minded on the issue of decriminalization,” New
Zealand’s parliamentary health select committee calls for reviewing the legal
status of cannabis.
Dec. 22 Scott Imler, proprietor of the West Hollywood club, writes
the SF
Chronicle, “The only ‘haphazard... for profit’ buyers’ club in the state is the
high-flying Market Street circus.”
Dec. 26 Dennis Peron announces he will run for governor of California
as a “liberal Republican” to face Dan Lungren in the June ’98 primary.
Also in December Terry Parker of Toronto gets a judge’s approval
to
use marijuana to prevent epileptic seizures... The DEA’s Miami Field Division
issues an internal “Survey of the Marijuana Situation” suggesting that active
opposition to the medical-use movement is the proper role of government. The
DEA mocks California’s Compassionate Use Act: “Since enacted, marijuana has been
dispensed in California Buyer’s Clubs for illnesses such as foot pain, headaches
and pre-menstrual syndrome.” So nu? On current distribution patterns,
the DEA is worthy of Anslinger: “Both Colombian and Mexican marijuana is still
being moved across the soutwest border of the U.S. via land vehicles, in particular
trucks. From there it is moved into Florida via the I-10 corridor, mainly distributed
into areas by Mexican nationals and
migrant workers.”
1998
January 1 CHAMP, the buyers club at Church and Market (“Cannabis
Helping Alleviate Medical Problems”) closes following Lungren’s threat and
labor-management tension. Co-founder Vic Hernandez expresses disappointment
that neither the city nor the state will provide an alternative to black market
supply sources...
The drug-testing industry trade journal MRO Alert calls on Congress to
prohibit the possession and sale of hemp products. “There is little question
that the most pressing issue in drug testing today is the commercial distribution
of hemp products... The adverse impact such products have on drug testing programs
is profound.” The drug testers want to ban all “products that would cause a positive
urinalysis.” Including poppy seeds?
Jan. 9 In federal court in San Francisco, the U.S. Department
of Justice files suit against the Cannabis Cultivators Club and Dennis
Peron; Flower Therapy and John Hudson, Mary Palmer, Barbara Sweeney
and Gerald Buhrz (their landlord!); the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative
and Jeffrey Jones; the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana and Lynette
Shaw; the Ukiah
Cannabis Buyer’s Club and Cherrie Lovett and Marvin and Mildred Lehrman; and
the Santa Cruz club (no proprietor named). The feds are seeking an
injunction against the clubs under the rarely used civil provisions of the Controlled
Substances Act, the 1970 law that established the drug scheduling system and
decreed that marijuana has no medical use. The approach seems designed
to avoid a jury trial on the clubs’ right to operate... In response, Dennis Peron
asks SF District Attorney Terence Hallinan and California Attorney General Dan
Lungren to file fraud charges against five DEA agents who falsified
doctors’ letters of diagnosis to gain membership in his club. Flower Therapy
promptly gets an eviction notice from a landlord worried about losing his
property.
Jan. 14 Marvin Chavez, who began operating the Orange County
Club out of his home after Prop 215 passed, is busted for transportation
and sales. Chavez had helped coordinate the local Prop 215 campaign.
He tried to run the club according to the law he had helped establish.
He informed patients that marijuana would be passed out free to members
but a voluntary donation would be requested (like $20 for an
eighth of an ounce). “Undercover cops forged a
doctor’s letter, getting in the door through subterfuge,” says Chavez. “They
begged me for some pot without adequate paperwork, begged me for a break. At
first I said ‘no,’ then finally gave in to the begging, saying ‘Just this once.’ The
police played on my compassion and entrapped me.”
January 15 Researchers at the University Massachusetts
describe the “powerful anti-inflammatory effects” of CT-3, a non-psychoactive
synthetic derivative of THC, in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism.
The manufacturer, Atlantic Pharmaceuticals, expects to file an investigational
new drug (IND) application with the FDA. In early tests, CT-3 substantially
reduced inflammation at very low doses and prevented the destruction
of joint tissues that typically result from chronic inflammation.
Jan. 21 The Arcata City Council unanimously approves Ordinance 1276,
which “recognizes that the assistance of medical marijuana associations...
may in some situations help promote the safe and lawful access to and
consistent and
affordable distribution” called for by Prop 215. Jason Browne of the Humboldt
Cannabis Center, working closely with Arcata Police Chief Mel Brown, developed
the plan, which includes voluntary registration by patients with the police.
The Humboldt Cannabis Center is a coop of 32 caregivers and patients who pay
a $20 monthly fee, which entitles them to a portion of the crop being grown by
members at two separate locations. They make contributions for any additional
cannabis
they get from the center.
Also 1/21 Florida Governor Lawton Chiles (who publicizes his own Prozac
use) and his Cabinet issue a resolution denouncing the attempt by Floridians
for
Medical Rights to legalize the medical use of marijuana.
Jan. 22 San Diego Municipal Court Judge Gale Kaneshiro orders possession
charges dismissed against Michael Ganey, who had had been arrested
despite a
doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana for pain relief (he has a degenerative
disorder in his wrists and ankles). Kaneshiro will subsequently grant a motion
for return of his confiscated property (less than an ounce of marijuana).
But attorney James Silva will have to threaten contempt proceedings before San
Diego’s Harbor Patrol will honor the order.
Jan. 31 After spending $250,000, AMR says its initiative
drive in Maine has fallen about 4,000 signatures short. “A fraction
of that money would have allowed the local grassroots activists to
qualify their own
initiative,” observes Laura Kriho of the Colorado Levellers.
February 1 C.H.A.M.P. reopens under new management. The fact
that it was closed when the federal indictiments came down created
a unique window of
opportunity, allowing the club to escape prosecution.
February 3-4 The Thousand Oaks City Council moves to close down
the
Ventura club and the DA gets a court order to the same effect —based on
Lungren’s argument that neither the club nor its proprietors are primary caregivers
for the members under Prop 215. The order does not prohibit co-founders Andrea
Nagy and Robert Carson from growing for personal use, and they are allowed to
take home the plants under cultivation at the club.
Feb. 11 Canadian Ross Rebagliati, who won the Olympic snowboarding
championship in Nagano, Japan, is stripped of his gold medal after
testing positive for marijuana. Rebagliati says he inhaled second-hand
smoke at a party. He will soon be reinstated as champion by the IOC
on the fuzzy logic that
marijuana —given the adverse effects on motor coordination attributed to it— can’t
possibly be a performance enhancer! The truth is, marijuana makes you looser,
which is why many snowboarders (and other athletes) don’t consider it a no-no.
An experienced smoker tells the Update, “Maybe it costs you your edge, but maybe
that’s not always a bad thing.”
Feb. 18 Robert Carson is stopped while driving and arrested
for
possession and transportation of marijuana. A migraine sufferer with a
doctor’s letter of recommendation, Carson is represented by Bill Panzer and James
Silva, who will argue that Prop 215 implicitly bars prosecution in such
cases.... The California Supreme Court declines to review the appelate
court ruling that denied caregiver status to cannabis clubs.
Feb. 21 The New Scientist reveals that a recently published
World Health Organization report had concluded originally that marijuana
is less
harmful than alcohol or tobacco—but the conclusion was deleted under pressure
from U.S. officials.
Feb. 23-24 The Institute of Medicine holding its third public session
on medical marijuana, hears from four researchers on the subject of cannabis
administration. Private-sector testing of aerosols, nebulizers, suppositories
and other alternatives to smoking suggest a widespread conviction among scientists
that the chemical components of cannabis have significant therapeutic
potential.
Feb. 24 In Sacramento federal Judge Lawrence Karlton cuts
four months off the 14-month sentence of convicted pot grower Roni
Aurelio in exchange for a promise from Aurelio that she will warn would-be
growers that
Prop 215 doesn’t shield them from federal laws banning cultivation. Karlton says
he took into account “the possibility that she relied on state law in determinining
the legality of her conduct.” The sentencing marks the first time the US
government has successfully prosecuted a California resident who claimed the
right to grow mj under Prop 215.
Feb. 26 House Resolution 372, introduced by Rep. Bill
McCollum (R-Fla) would put Congress on record disapproving of state
initiatives to
legalize medical marijuana — “a dangerous and addictive drug.”
March 9 Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Henry K. Nelson upholds
a prior ruling for the return of marijuana siezed from Christopher
Joseph Brown. The case against Brown had been dismissed on the basis
that the marijuana he was growing and possessed was lawful under Health
and Safety Code section 11362.5
(Prop 215). Nelson found that the amount possessed by Brown (about
11 ounces) was reasonably related to his needs.
March 15 Dennis Peron rents a six-bedroom house on a 20-acre
spread,
about 7 miles north of Middleton in Lake County - “a country resort for club
members where we can grow marijuana under Prop 215.” There’s a pond and
a couple of outbuildings overlooking a vast meadow. The area is thinly
wooded and the neighbors’ places are visible. The landlord is a 75-year-old well-wisher
known as Magic Jack. Asked why he didn’t choose Russian River or Mendocino,
Dennis says, “I like Lake County. It’s affordable.”
March 16 San Francisco DA Terence Hallinan files an amicus brief in the federal
case stating that if the cannabis clubs are closed down, patients will die
and “what is now a reasonably well-controlled, safe distribution system...
will
devolve into a completely unregulated and unregulatable public nuisance.” He
raises the possibility of a city-run distribution system. Attorney General Dan
Lungren, informed of the remark, threatens to prosecute any city personnel who
distribute marijuana.
March 18 Fern Smith orders the plaintiffs in Conant v. McCaffrey —five
patients, nine AIDS specialists and one oncologist— to turn over records
and
answer federal lawyers’ questions regarding discussions about marijuana since
November 1994. The government is trying to establish that there has been
no lessening of doctor-patient discussion of marijuana, and therefore no “chilling
effect” resulting from threats by McCaffrey to prosecute doctors who abide by
Prop 215.
March 19 A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association
summarizes 47 surveys conducted over the past 20 years and concludes
that 60 percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana for medical
use.
March 20 Basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the leading scorer
in
NBA history, surrenders 6 grams of marijuana —less than a quarter ounce— and
pays a $500 fine to US Customs officials at an airport in Toronto. Jabbar is
a
migraine sufferer.
March 23 San Jose police seize patients’ records from the Santa
Clara
County Cannabis Center —one day after a sympathetic police chief is replaced
by a drug warrior. In the days to come police will contact doctors listed in
the
files to discuss their patients’ cases. Co-founder Peter Baez, 35, is arrested
(shortly after surgery for colon cancer) on charges of selling marijuana to
a person who had no doctor’s approval. Police claim that Baez and Jesse
Garcia were making a profit on the operation. They had $29,000 in the bank and
had started drawing $300/week. Baez, who has AIDS and faces more surgery,
says he owes $17,000 to growers, $1,200 in rent and $15,000 in
legal bills.
Also 3/23 A ballot proposal which would amend the Nevada constitution
to allow for the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes is filed by Americans
for Medical Rights. It would allow Nevada residents who suffer from cancer,
AIDS,
glaucoma, multiple sclerosis and other “chronic or debilitating conditions” to
possess and use marijuana with a doctor’s permission. Some 46,000 signatures
are required -with a minimum number from each county. If the voters pass the
measure in ’98, they will have to ratify it again in 2000 in order for it to
take effect. Although it requires medical mj users to register with a state agency,
the Nevada proposal is the most liberal from AMR in that it
doesn’t set quantity limits.
Alan Leshner, director of NIDA —the man whose approval is needed for marijuana
research to be conducted legally in the U.S.— reveals a bizarre mindset when
he tells the New Yorker: “My belief is that today, in 1998, you should be put
in jail if you refuse to prescribe SSRIs for depression... I also believe that
five years from now you should be put in jail if you don’t give crack addicts
the medications we’re working on now.” [SSRIs are antidepressants of the Prozac
type.]
March 24: A hearing on the Justice Department’s motion for an
injunction that would close six northern California cannabis buyers
clubs is
held in Judge Charles Breyer’s courtroom. See story below.
March 30 Cheryl Miller, with the aid of her husband Jim, uses
medicinal marijuana in the office of U.S. Rep. Jim Rogane and is arrested
and charged with possession. The civil disobedience is to protest H.Res.
372, which would affirm
that the House is “unequivocally opposed to legalizing marijuana for medicinal
use.” Miller, 51, has had multiple sclerosis since 1971. She states, “Having
tried every legal drug to treat my pain and spasticity, I have found that marijuana
is the safest and most effective medicine for me.”
April 2-3 Nine federal marshals break into Todd McCormick’s
empty Laurel Canyon residence in an attempt to arrest him for bail
violations. Next morning McCormick turns himself in and is jailed because
there are traces of THC in his urine; his claim that the THC is from
legally prescribed Marinol is
disallowed.
April 8 The cases against Steve McWilliams and Dion Markgraaff,
organizers of the San Diego Caregivers Club, are consolidated. McWilliams,
43, a former cowboy who uses cannabis for pain and migraines, was stopped
in January at an internal border checkpoint while bringing 11 plants
to a paraplegic club
club member. Investigators searched his home -on a ranch owned by cancer
patient Carol Byron- and found a collective garden inside a barn. On the
walls were the names of patients to whom the plants belonged, including the
ranch’s residents and San Diego club members. McWilliams is charged with
cultivation, maintenance of a location for distribution, conspiracy to cultivate
for distribution; based on the Trippet precedent, transportation charges against him
are dropped. Markgraaff is charged with conspiracy to distribute, sales
to an undercover agent, and cultivation at the club’s Ocean Beach
office. The San Diego club served HOW MANY members at two locations, one
in the Hillcrest district, one in a strip mall near a police station in Ocean
Beach police station. It closed in February, following the busts. Lawyer James
Silva thinks he’ll be allowed to mount a Prop 215 defense when the matter goes
to trial in February 99. McWilliams is facing four years, eight months
in
prison; Markgraaff is facing eight years.
April 11 Marvin Chavez and Jack Shachter, co-directors of the Orange
County Cannabis Co-op, are arrested and charged with selling to undercover
officers who posed as patients and caregivers. Chavez was first arrested
in January on seven counts of felony marijuana distribution and warned by a
judge to cease his activities. Within weeks he was entrapped by two undercover
agents with phony doctors’ letters. Shachter, who has painful detached
retinas, will be charged with felony sales (to an undercover agent posing
as a legitimate patient’s caregiver) and “intent to deliver.”
April 14 Federal Judge George King orders the release of Todd McCormick
because there was no legal basis for his arrest. “Is there a case law I am
not
aware of under which we can hold Mr. McCormick until his hearing?” King
asks Federal Prosecutor Fernando Aenlle-Rocha. “Not that I am aware
of,” Aenlle-Rocha answers. “How could this man watch Todd led away in tears
two weeks ago when he knew all along that what the government was doing
was illegal?” asks Peter McWilliams, McCormick’s friend and publisher. “This
was prohibited by the Bail Reform Act of 1984. This is not new law. The government
had to know it was illegal. Apparently people can be locked up just because
the government asks for it. That’s how dangerous to all of our liberties
the federal war on California medical marijuana patients has
become.”
April 15 Judge David Garcia orders the SF cannabis club closed because
it
sold marijuana to caregivers; and if the sheriff won’t enforce the order, says
Garcia, Dan Lungren can do it with state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement agents.
Dennis Peron complains, “They’re closing us down on a technicality. I wrote the
law specifically so that I could sell to caregivers of people who were too sick
to leave the house.” He vows to stay open “till they come to get us and
we have another Waco.” The Examiner headlines: “Pot Club to Defy
Order.” But overnight a new strategy is developed. Dennis notifies
the sheriff that he is formally closing his operation, which will re-open for
business as the Cannabis Healing Center under the direction of Hazel Rodgers. “If
they want to play games, we can play games,” says Dennis.
Also 4/15 Fearing consumers will infer “a connection between beer and
drug abuse,” the German Beer Association sues Asbjoern Gerlach, who has begun
marketing a beer containing hemp. The ancient law stating that beer must be
made from nothing but malt, hops, yeast, and water was relaxed in 1993 so Anheuser-Busch
and Miller could sell their “beer” in Germany, additives and
all.
April 20 Lawyers file motions to dismiss charges against B.E.
Smith. “After B.E. Smith publicly declared his intention to grow marijuana
for medical use under California Health and Safety Code 11362.5, he
was targeted by the federal government for prosecution under federal
law,” according to a writ filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern
District of California by Attorney Thomas Ballanco (Los Angeles) and
Federal Defender Timothy Zindel.
The Background of the Smith Case by Ellen Komp of The 215 Reporter:
Smith, a 50-year-old Vietnam vet with post-traumatic stress disorder, announced
his intent to exercise his rights to the Trinity County Board of Supervisors
in
April, 1997. He repeated his intentions in an article in the Trinity Journal. Sgt.
Dave Cox, head of the narcotics division of the Trinity County Sheriff’s department,
threatened he would use federal law and federal law enforcement officers to deal
with Mr. Smith.
Smith got national television coverage when he publicly planted 20 marijuana
plants in June. His landlord, Martin Lederer, reported the planting to local
sheriffs, who did nothing. Smith, a self-taught student of common law, refused
to accept state jurisdiction by signing a ticket or bailing out, so that indictment
would require an injured party to appear before a magistrate. Since there was
no injured party, there could be no indictment.
After three weeks, Smith planted again, ending up with 87 plants. The plot
was posted with statements from patients about why they could not grow for
themselves: one was paralyzed from the waist down, another lost a leg, a third
lived in the inner city.
Despite Smith’s invitation to an open inspection, local and federal police
agents conducted covert surveillance and a warrantless search of the garden.
On September 23, 1997, federal agents led by the U.S. Marshal obtained a search
warrant and tore up the plants. An Eastern District Grand Jury indicted Smith
and Lederer with multiple violations of the federal Controlled Substances Act.
(Lederer was one of the patients for whom Smith grew.) Both appeared before
the
magistrate judge on December 4 and pleaded not guilty.
Ballanco (representing Smith) and Denvir (representing Lederer) have filed
motions to dismiss based on the commerce clause and erroneous scheduling of
marijuana. A separate motion alleges that the federal government exercised
selective prosecution in order to deny a 215 defense to Smith and Lederer.
Discriminatory prosecution or enforcement of the laws is generally recognized
to constitute a valid defense to criminal charges (45 ALR Fed 732 (1979)).
To select a man for prosecution because he has spoken freely within the meaning
of the First Amendment is impermissible (U.S. v. Steele 461 F 2d 1148 (9th
Cir.
1972).
The amount of marijuana involved in the case —87 plants— is far below the amount
that would ordinarily be prosecuted by any U.S. Attorney in this state. A 1994
Memorandum by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California precludes
federal prosecution for less than 200 plants on federally owned land, 500 plants
on private land, or 200 kg of marijuana. A law clerk reviewed files of the
Federal Defender’s Office for the Eastern District and was unable to find a
single indictment alleging manufacture of fewer than 100 marijuana plants.
Indeed, the average marijuana case filed in the district alleges ‘manufacture’ of
over 1,500 plants.
“At least in this district, the U.S. Attorney is endeavoring not only to prevent
speech but to coerce it through criminal process,” the motion states.
April 20: Sheriff Mike Hennessey closes the SF club. Hazel Rodgers, a club
member whose name is on the lease, says she’ll run the operation on a patients-only
basis (no sales to caregivers). The landlord, afraid he might lose his property
if he honors the lease, won’t go along with the scheme -so the services of
a locksmith are employed. More than 120 people work at 1444 Market; without
the structure and support their employment provides, some may not fare very
well. And many of the 8,000 members have come to rely on 1444 Market St. as
a social scene.
April 20 Constable Gil Puder, a 15-year veteran of the Vancouver, B.C.
police force, defies an order from the chief and gives a speech called, “Recovering
Our Honor: Why Policing Must Reject the War on Drugs.” Drug busts almost always
are aimed at the poor, he notes, and are relatively easy; the pay-off for cops
includes overtime and faster promotions.... In Tuolomne County, Superior Court
Myron Mower -a severe diabetic, legally blind, unable to hold down food- is
convicted of felony cultivation. Sheriff’s deputies, after raiding his
house and ripping out 28 of 31 plants, found Mower in a hospital, hooked up
to a morphine drip. “My health was all in that garden,” Mower told them. “You
guys don’t know what you’ve done to me.” Mower “confessed” that the plants
were for himself and two other sick people -resulting in his conviction and
the imposition of a $1,000 fine by Superior Court Judge Eric DuTemple, plus
five years’ probation... At a rally in front of the Calaveras County Courthouse,
lawyer Tony Serra says he will argue that
Robert Galambos —busted in Paloma with 380 plants— was growing mj for cannabis
buyers clubs. “You can’t in essence legalize milk and outlaw
the cow,” Serra says.
April 22 “Young Blacks Link Tobacco Use to Marijuana” The New York Times makes
a frontpage story out of surveys showing that black teenagers begin smoking
cigarettes later than whites, but start using marijuana earlier. The increase
is attributed to “a belief that cigarettes prolong the heady rush of
marijuana.”
The Santa Cruz Club is closed for good. Med Ex, under Anita Henri, seeks to
pick
up some of the slack... Carl Wright from the Feather River Compassionate
Use Co-op says the assistant DA shelved his case. Carl can have his plants back
and be allowed to furnish, not sell, medical mj. He can also show people how
to
grow. CONFIRM
April 27 In Los Angeles U.S. District Judge George King says he will
allow Todd McCormick to use Marinol if prosecutors cannot prove he is using
it to mask marijuana use. McCormick is awaiting trial on charges of growing
4,116 marijuana plants in a rented Bel Air mansion. He claims protection under
Prop 215. If
convicted he faces a minimum 10-year sentence.
April 28 Portland, Oregon, multiple sclerosis patient Craig
Helm is sentenced to two years probation and two $100 fines after a jury finds
him guilty of marijuana manufacture and possession. Helm was arrested at his
home in Hilsboro, Oregon in 1996, after a police raid that netted eight marijuana
plants. Helm, 48, is a former truck driver whose MS has confined him
to a wheelchair. He began using marijuana, he says, when his prescription for
the painkiller Baclofen failed to calm the wrenching muscle spasms in his legs,
and his doctors told him they wanted to surgically implant a pump that would
feed the drug directly into his spinal canal. Helm’s attorney, Leland Berger,
says Helm rejected a pre-trial offer of bench probation in part because he
hoped that the case might be dismissed on the basis of a “choice of
evils” medical necessity (between marijuana and the surgically-implanted pump)
defense. To that end, and with the help of the Medical Marijuana Defense Fund,
Berger was able to fly Virginia neurologist Dr. Denis J. Petro to Portland to
provide expert testimony on the efficacy of marijuana in the treatment of
Helm’s symptoms. Deputy District Attorney Greg Olson called the studies Dr. Petro
cited “junk science” and sought to have his testimony stricken from court records,
but Circuit Judge Gregory Milnes decided to allow it.
Helm’s own neurologist, Dr. Michelle Mass,”told the court that she would have
prescribed Marinol for Craig had he asked for it in the past, and that she
would do so in the future,” according to Berger.. “She also said that she would
prescribe marijuana if it were legal.” Though the defense failed, the trial
contributed to local understand of marijuana’s medical applications. “The very
experience of having twelve people sit there watching Craig and listening to
testimony over three days will have positive ripple effects throughout the
community,” says Berger (whose account of the case, and the response
he received from a jury member after the trial, are posted on the Portland
NORML web site at http://www.pdxnornil.org/news98 index 0430.html.)
April 29: Good news and bad for the club at 1444 Market
St. A San Francisco judge rules that it can stay open under the
leadership of Hazel
Rodgers until the AG’s office brings evidence to prove that its activities are
unlawful. But representatives of the building’s owner file preliminary eviction
papers... 65 counties in Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee are
declared a “High Intensity Drug Trafficking area” by the federal government;
pot is considered the number one cash crop in the depressed region. The designation
will mean an infusion of $6 million for interagency eradication efforts... Andrea
Nagy cites Prop 215 in applying for a pardon for a 1991
cultivation conviction. “I have rehabilitated myself,” Nagy tells Superior Court
Judge Stephen Hintz, “and the activity I committeed is no longer proscribed by
the state.” The pardon is granted over the objections of an
Assistant DA.
May 2 The number prisoners in California for marijuana sales and possession
-1,905- has risen by more than 10% since the passage of Prop 215, according
to a report from the State Department of Corrections. “This refutes the
ludicrous claims that Prop 215 has effectively legalized marijuana
in California,” comments NORML’s Dale Gieringer.
May WHAT In Shasta County, Rick Levin is arrested for cultivation
and possession. He suffers from severe spasms and pain following a fall
that burst his T12 vertebra and caused spinal cord damage. He has a four-page
declaration of approval from his primary care doctor which Judge Ruggerio disallows
as evidence. Levin’s wife Kim is also busted. ALSO IN SHASTA; MARSHALL
AND MARILYN LOSCOT kimmelevin[email protected]
860 August Way, Redding 96003 530 243 2159
May 7 Charges are dropped against David Kassikov of the Chico
Co-op.
DESCRIBE CASE. Observers think the prosecution didn’t want to reveal the
affidavit on the basis of which the original search warrant was issued.
May 8 The San Jose club, with 270 members, goes out of
business. “We’ve been killed by the police and the district attorney,” says
Peter
Baez. “My credit is out. I can’t get any more marijuana....” Also 5/8: Former
State Senator Bill Lockyer, running for Attorney General, reveals that he voted
for Prop 215 and promises, if elected, to assure distribution of medical
marijuana.
May 9 “Bowing to the wishes of consumers, the Government announced
today that it would not allow food to be labeled ‘organic’ if it was
genetically engineered, irradiated or grown in soil fertilized with
sewage
sludge,” reports the NY Times. “The action came in response to comments from
tens of thousands of consumers concerned about the purity of their food and the
integrity of the organic label... Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said biotechnology,
irradiation and sludge fertilizer were safe and had ‘important roles to play
in agriculture.’” The organic farmers organized fast on this. The poisoners
will try again, you betcha.
May 10 The trial of Dave Herrick begins. Herrick
is a
Vietnam vet and former San Bernardino county deputy sheriff (1977-91) who
retired on disability due to a back injury after a car rolled over him. He uses
marijuana for pain relief; had worked as a volunteer at the Orange County Cannabis
Co-op; was arrested in March ’97 with seven quarter-ounce baggies
marked “NOT FOR SALE” and charged with possession for sale, “even though I showed
the cop my written doctor’s recommendation, and advised him that I was a member
of the O.C. Cannabis Co-op, showed him my membership card, etc. etc.” Judge
William Froeberg denies Herrick the right to cite Prop 215 or “medical
necessity” in his defense, and cracks to the public defender, “Does he think
he’s Mother Theresa?”
May 12 The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors allocates $50,000
to design a three-year study of the medical use of marijuana that will
follow FDA
guidelines.
May 14 Judge Charles Breyer issues a preliminary injunction
against five cannabis clubs (Santa Cruz having folded). “The
fact that it may be lawful under state law for defendants to cultivate
and possess marijuana for medical purposes, does not make it lawful
under federal law,” Breyer rules. Gerald Uelmen, now representing
the Oakland club, sees a
small silver lining:
“The right to a jury trail has been left in tact, and quite clearly the availability
of these defenses [necessity and joint purchase] has not been foreclosed. So,
in continuing to operate, the clubs are not defying federal law. They are not
defying an order by any federal court to close down. They are simply going to
assert their right to have the availability of these defenses determined by a
California jury.”
May 14 Dave Herrick of the Orange County Cannabis co-op is found
guilty of two counts of selling marijuana -and acqutted on two counts.
Judge William Froeberg would not let Herrick cite Prop 215 as a defense
because it does not specifically protect the sale of marijuana. Mira
Ingram reports: “Froeberg did not allow any evidence to be seen by
the jury that related to Proposition 215, virtually eliminating all
evidence Public Defender Sharon Petrosino had to submit. Stickers from
cannabis baggies stating “Not for sale,” a club ID
card, and a doctor’s note could not be seen by the jury. The jury came out after
about an hour of deliberations to ask the judge why they weren’t allowed to consider
Proposition 215 in deciding the verdict. Judge Froeberg said that 215 covers
possession and use, but not sales. The jury deliberated for about two more hours
before coming up with the two guilty verdicts.” The Orange County club
gave away marijuana and requested donations to cover its expenses. The suggested
donation for 1/4 ounce was $20. Public defender Sharon Petrosino compared the
approach to the one used by nonprofit organizations that send address labels
to prospective supporters.
Judge Froeberg metes out a four-year sentence, one year shy of the max: “Mr.
Herrick is nothing more than a marijuana dealer... As a former law enforcement
officer, Mr. Herrick should have known better.”
Narcs from the WHAT County Sheriff’s Dept simultaenously raid the Arroyo Grande
home shared by Thomas Dunbar and Jo-D Harrison Furino, seizing 203 opium poppies
and 68 mj plants, and the Los Osos residence of John Edward McLean and his
wife Violet, seizing 51 mj plants and 446 poppies. The defendants say
they were for medical use.
May 15 The DEA, obligated to seek public commment on the envirnomental
impact of using herbicides to eradicate marijuana, hears opposition
from
citizens in Hawaii. “Unless the DEA can prove that the spraying is less dangerous
to personal, community and environmental health than the plant they are trying
to eradicate, there is no justification for this expensive waste of taxpayers
money,” says Daniel Susott, an Oahu physician. A spokesman for the state Agriciulture
Dept. reminds the DEA that many Big Island residents grow their own vegetables
and drink water from rain tanks... Also 5/15 In Lexington, Kentucky, would-be
hemp farmers and vendors file suit in US District Court to legalize the low-THC
version of the cannabis plant. Their lawyer says
it’s a matter of survival for many small farmers, adding “This whole country
was created by people who were involved in agriculture and grew hemp.” The
federal government moves to have the suit dismissed
May 16 Some 20 DEA and local law enforcement agents storm in
on four
very sick people in the early morning hours at Dennis Peron’s spread in Lake
County. They seize 238 plants from the garden —lopping them off a few inches
above the ground, so that they’ll grow back— and several pounds of dried mj. Jon
Entwistle vows to replant. Sheriff Rodney Mitchell tells the Middletown
Times-Star, “A mature, well-cultivated marijuana plant can produce one to three
pounds of high grade processed marijuana.”
May 21 The Oakland club announces that it will remain open despite Judge
Breyer’s order, and that every transaction now involves a statement confirming
that the marijuana was purchased or cultivated jointly by the members for their
medical use. As the press conference begins, Jeff Jones is notified by
staff that a DEA agent, posing as a patient, is trying to buy medical marijuana. “Jeff
went to the room where the DEA agent was sitting and asked him to verify all
the papers he had just submitted. Jeff then escorted the agent into another
room and opened the door to a roomful of media. Jeff told the media that he
had just caught a DEA agent trying to make an illegal purchase with falsified
papers. The terrified agent fled and tried to escape down the elevator... as
soon as the elevator door opened [on the ground floor] the cameras and journalists
were all over the DEA agent, who was struggling to cover his face like a common
criminal.” —Steve Kubby
May 26 Scott Imler of the L.A. Cannabis Resource Center
tells the L.A. Times that the government has succeeded in closing 23
of 29 cannabis clubs,
attributing his club’s success to the thoroughness with which they confirm letters
from doctors and enforce their rules. The club, which has 459 members, receives
strong support from West Hollywood mayor Steve Martin. (No, not that Steve Martin.)
They have 250 plants under cultivation, the goal being to grow enough in-house
to meet all their needs.
Also May 26 The State Senate’s Committee on Public Safety, chaired
by
John Vasconcellos, holds a modestly entitled “Medical Marijuana Distribution
Summit” (to which Dennis Peron is not invited) in connection with a bill Vasco
has introduced, SB 1887, under which cities could establish and regulate
dispensaries.
May 26 Some 50 farmers in the Chatham-Kent area of Ontario get
federal permits to plant the first legal hemp crop in more than six decades
in Canada. They are under contract to Kenex, Ltd, which is licensed and regulated
by the government under the Controlled Substance and Abuse Act of 1996 (which
legalized hemp farming). Bob Lecuyer of Kenex estimates 2,000 acres will be
planted in ’98, 4,000 in ’99. “There is great demand for hemp products from
the automobile industry,” he says. $2 million worth of specially designed
processing equipment from Europe is being installed.
May 28 CHAMP membership reaches 500 as patrons of the
club at 1444 Market seek a new source of medical marijuana. CHAMP insists
on a
doctor’s note recommending the use of marijuana and dated within 30 days of the
new member’s application; staffers then call to verify and issue a photo ID.
Manager Ken Hayes says they’re grossing $35,000/month... ACT UP at 3991 17th
St. gains 100 new members in a week -from 300 to 400. They require that
prospective members sign a declaration under penalty of perjury that a doctor
has recommended pot for their medical condition. “We’re not doctors
or judges,” says Michael Bellefountaine. “If you make a promise that you are
sick and you need pot, I give you pot.” There’s no smoking at the club,
which is in a small apartment. Prices for 1/8th ounce range from $55 (top grade
California sinsemilla) to $15 (Mexican). They’re grossing $25,000/month, which
barely covers rent and supplies... Across the street is a small nonsmoking
club run by AIDS patient James Green, who opened in December ’97 and now has
150 members. His highgrade mj sells for $70 an ounce.
May 28 Clifford Shibata, a longtime DEA employee who ran the
agency’s Clandestine Laboratory Group in San Francisco is convicted
of embezzling $120,000 that was supposed to be used to buy evidence
and pay informants.
May 30 On the eve of the June primary, Chronicle columnist Ken
Garcia
directs a hit piece at Dennis Peron “Pot Clubs’ Peron —Such a Dope.”
June 1 Retiring Commandant Robert E. Kramek complains to the
Washington Post that the Coast Guard needs and extra $500 million to
$600 million more a year to spend on drug interdiction. [Is this really
a higher priority than fisheries enforcement and the inspection of
vessels?]
June 3 Lawyers Bill Simpich and Kenneth Frucht sue
Attorney General Dan Lungren in San Francisco Superior Court for blocking
the
implementation of Prop 215. They’re seeking an order to stop the AG from
prosecuting medical marijuana users and to allow counties and cities to get involved
in distribution... The United Nations will seek support for a multibillion
dollar plan to eradicate the world’s entire production of heroin, cocaine and
marijuana within 10 years. Pino Arlacchi, the UN’s top counter-narcotics
official, says he has already gotten a pledge of cooperation from the Taliban
in Afghanistan (the Islamic group that won’t let girls attend school and stones
women on the street). Arlacchi is said to have become
the UN’s top counter-narcotics official after curtailing the power of the Mafia
in Italy; this is like Barry McCaffrey being named drug czar by Clinton
because “as a 4-star general he stopped drugs from entering the United States
from South America...” Also 6/3: DEA Chief Tom Constantine and William
Bennett join Florida politicians in a kickoff to the campaign to oppose the medical
marijuana initiative.
June 4 In Placer County, Deputy DA David Tellman tells a jury, “I
don’t think that stuttering is one of the illnesses that voters contemplated
when they voted in favor of Proposition 215.” David Black of Dutch Flat will
get WHAT SETENCE for possession of HOW MUCH mj.
June 5 The long-delayed study by Donald Abrams of UCSF into the effects
of smoking marijuana on HIV/AIDS patients has been so saddled with restrictions
that few test subjects have volunteered. According to the AIDS Treatment News, “the
main drawback is that you must spend 25 days in a research ward at San Francisco
General Hospital, without leaving during that time, and without receiving visitors
(due to Federal rules for studying marijuana).” Volunteers either smoke
marijuana cigarettes (4% THC), take Marinol, or take
placebo capsules. Abrams, who got a runaround for years from NIDA, got
the green light when he changed the stated emphasis of his study from seeing
whether mj promoted weight gain to seeing whether it interacted adversely with
protease
inhibitors (which are metabolized in the liver, as is THC). Abrams is seeking
64 volunteers who meet the study criteria; to date 32 have enrolled. For more
info call 415-502-5705.... In England, a jury clears Colin Davies
of Greater Manchester of cultivating cannabis in violation of the Misuse of Drugs
Act. Davies, a former joiner who broke his back after a 60-foot fall from a bridge
in 1994, denounces the prosecution as a waste of money. “The only victim out
of all this is me. I could not believe it when the police broke down my door.
I was being arrested for something that was for my own medical benefit. Where
am I on the scale of criminality?”
June 5 Donna Cockrel, a Frankfort Kentucky teacher who was fired after
teaching her fifth-grade students about hemp, files a federal lawsuit
against
the school system and her former bosses.
June 8 On the opening day of the United Nations’ Special
Session on Narcotics, an open letter to UN Secretary General Koffi
Annan, drafted by Ethan Nadelmann of the Lindesmith Center and signed
by over 500
prominent individuals, runs in the New York Times. “We believe the global war
on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself,” it states, and calls
on the Secretary to lead a discussion of alternative solutions... “Global Days
Against the Drug War” —demonstrations in some 30 cities
protest the UN’s role as prohibition enforcer... “ In North Carolina a
jury finds Jan Marlowe guilty of marijuana possession -after denying her a medical
necessity defense. Marlowe, 45, suffers pain and nausea from porphyria (a liver
abnormality), degenerative disk disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia.
Her doctor testified that conventional pain medications damaged
Marlowe’s liver, and that he recommended marijuana as a safer alternative. The
Court refused to hear evidence on her medical need for marijuana.
June 9 Mendocino County Supervisors vote 3-2 to
replace
language calling marijuana eradication “not a reasonable and attainable
goal” and “not a wise use of public funds” —in order to get their annual $250,000
grant.
June 10 “Two months and nearly two million men into the Viagra
craze, concern is growing about the possibility of unanticipated side
effects and adverse reactions when the impotency pill is taken with
other medications,” reports the Wall St. Journal. “Federal regulators
yesterday disclosed 10 more
deaths of men who were taking Pfizer Inc.’s new drug.. While pharmaceuticals
manufacturers test their concoctions on several thousand subjects to monitor
side effects and efficacy, the real experiment begins only after a drug hits
the
market and vastly more people begin taking it...” Roche Holding AG
withdraws Posicor, its highly touted hypertension drug, 10 months after it hit
the market; it was found to cause adverse reactions ... Other recently pulled
drugs include American Home Products’ Redux, an obesity pill found to cause heart-valve
damage; Hoechst’s Seldane, an allergy medicine that caused dangerous interactions
with many other drugs; Eli Lilly’s Oraflex, an arthritis drug linked to 70 deaths;
and Johnson & Johnson’s Zomax, a painkiller found to cause fatal allergic
reactions... Many more drugs have to add warnings to their labels as adverse
side effects and interactions are
discovered after they hit the market.
June 13 Police officials from major U.S. cities convene to discuss
the corruption of law enforcement by drug money. The number of federal,
state and
local offiicals in federal prisons has soared from 107 in ’94 to 548 in ’98. Former
San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara says, “corruption ranges from chiefs and
sheriffs on down to officers. Every week there’s another police scandal related
to the drug war -corruption, brutality, and even armed robbery
by cops in uniform.” Also 6/13 Hundreds of people in pain demonstrate
in Washington to demand freer access to medication. Skip Baker, the organizer
of the American Society for Action on Pain (ASAP), says tht 51 percent of cancer
patients are under-medicated. “In some states it’s legal to help a pain patient
die, but not legal to control their suffering so they can live.”
June 17 Barry McCaffrey warns the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “There
is a carefully camouflaged, exorbitantly funded, well-heeled elitist
group whose ultimate goal is to legalize drug use in the United States....
Through a slick misinformation campaign, these individuals perpetuate
a fraud on the American people, a fraud so devious that even some of
the nation’s most respected newspapers and sophisticated media are
capable of echoing their
falsehoods....” An FDA advisory committee endorses the safety of Olestra, the
fake fat from Procter & Gamble used in Frito-Lay potato chips.
June 18 A French government study concludes that smoking marijuana
poses less of a threat to public health than the regular consumption
of alcohol. Marijuana has low toxicity and little addictive power,
researchers at the French medical institute INSERM concluded. The report
identifies alcohol, heroin, and cocaine as the drugs most dangerous
to health. Tobacco, psychotropic drugs, tranquilizers, and hallucinogens
were placed in a second, less harmful
group. Marijuana was classified in a third category of substances posing
relatively little danger. A Health Minister calls the report “toxicologically
correct but politically wrong.”
June 19 After a doctor confirms that he had approved a decision by 62-year
old Dean Jones to use marijuana (for high blood pressure, migraine headaches,
back problems and periodic inflammation of the foot), the Ventura County district
attorney’s office decides not to file charges against Jones. Simi Valley police,
under court order, return pot plants they’d seized from
Jones’s backyard during a May 27 raid. Although the plants were no longer
alive, and only 10 of 13 were returned, Jones says, “I’ve been vindicated and
I’m legal and that’s all I wanted in the first place.” Jones and his wife
had notified the Simi Valley PD that he was growing marijuana for his own medical
use; he was arrested the next day. He spent 14 hours in the Ventura County jail
and will now file a claim for false arrest.
In Arizona, medical marijuana advocates push for a “no” vote on Propositions
300 and 301— which would confirm the state legislature’s override of the 1996
vote allowing medical use of all schedule I drugs. The cause gets $900,000
from the richest man in the state: John Sperling, a professor of economic history
whose Phoenix-based Apollo Group owns 88 private colleges. Sperling’s critique
of the drug war, as summarized by the Arizona Republic: “the $350 billion spent
each year on illegal drugs is going to drug lords in this and foreign nations,
who in turn use their wealth to corrupt police, border agents,
judge and politicians.” Sperling warns of “a bureaucratic-industrial complex
that has resulted in laws and enforcement measures that have given our nation
the highest rate of imprisonment in the industrialzed world. The cabal is composed
of police and prison guards, their unions, the construction firms that build
prisons, the private firms that run the growing number of private prisons, the
food and other commodity firms that supply prisons, and the politicians whose
campaign coffers are filled by all those who benefit from the current
system.” This from a man who is in an allied field, in a sense, and truly understands
the situation. Sperling describes the Arizona legislature as “totally indifferent,
not only to the will of the citizenry, but also to a
bankrupt (drug war) program.” A small split in capital through which
a little flower seems to be growing...
Alaskans for Medical Rights circulates an initiative that allows patients to
possess one ounce and cultivate three plants. It requires patients to register
with the state, and makes no provision for distribution.
June 22 In Santa Monica, mj possession charges are dismissed against
Kim
Jiminez. Attorney James Silva reports: “Jiminez is a paraplegic who is
confined to a wheelchair and recently had his right leg amputated. He suffers
from a spasticity condition as a result of his spinal cord injury. Mr. Jiminez
is the owner of a hemp boutique on Main Street in Santa Monica. He was cited
for possession of under an ounce in early June when he was medicating outside
of his place of business. Despite informing the police that he was a patient,
he was cited and his medicine was confiscated. I presented the letter from his
doctor to the City Attorney and explained the protection that the Compassionate
Use Act
is calculated to afford patients and the charges were dismissed today.”
June 29 In San Bernadino County the drug eradication team
seizes
18 plants from Prop 215 organizer Gene Weeks —plus his growing equipment
and four “mother plants.” He writes to a friend, “they took $740 all the
money I had, my entire collecxtion of High Times, misc personal and intimate
photos, my personal medicine. they then arrested me and transported me
to West Valley correctional facility in Rancho Cucamonga where I was detained
without even my diabetes medicine, not to mention pain medicaiton for my severely
degenerated arthritic spine or my wheelchair. I wsa released three days later,
broke, sick, not charged with any crime, and having no medication. Thanks to
a couple of angels named Janette and Alan I had a ride home and some McDonalds
burgers (jail food isn’t fit for my 8 yr old dog, who was locked in my trailer
alone while I was in jail)... I’m depressed and confused as to the fact that
I’m a Vietnam era veteran who is totally disabled, and now my government, for
which I volunteered to do war, is now making war on me because I must use cannabis
to make lifeand the painful body I’m trapped in just
bearable for one more day.”
June 30 Vasconcellos’ distribution bill, SB-1887, is defeated by the
Assembly Health Committee.
July 1 Advertisements warning that marijuana is unhealthy begin airing
nationally. The federal government and the ad industry will spend $2
billion over five years on the propaganda campaign. The Partnership
for a Drug-Free America will direct the funds to favored newspapers,
TV and radio stations in 12 markets; ads will also be placed on billboards
and the internet. It will be the 15th largest brand campaign in America,
reaching 95 percent of homes with four
antidrug messages a week.
Also 7/1 In Dallas, Texas, opponents of the drug war picket the DEA
office. Spending on prison construction to college construction in
Texas is 77-to-1, says one of the signs. 50,000 Americans are arrested
every month on marijuana
charges... Marijuana growers in Washington state worry that pollen from
the hemp being grown in Southern Canada will reach their all-female plants, causing
them to seed up.
July 6 Wives of two soldiers die as an Army helicopter
crashes in the Bahamas. Chief Warrant Officers Daniel Riddell and David
E. Guido and Sgt William Westgate had taken Pam Guido and Rebecca Riddell
for a ride in their UH-60 Black Hawk. Stationed at Hunter Army Airfield
in Savannah, Georgia, they were in the Caribbean on a mission that
supports DEA drug interdiction efforts. An Army investigator will note
that the assignment had a “party
atmosphere” and was known as a way for military families to take free
vacations.
July 7 The Oakland City Council approves a policy allowing patients
growing marijuana indoors to possess 48 flowering plants and 96 non-flowering
plants —and six pounds of processed marijuana. Those growing outdoors
are allowed are 30 flowering and 60 non-flowering plants. The amounts
are based on
what the federal IND program provides to its eight patients. Police are
instructed not to cite patients and caregivers who can document their status
and
don’t exceed the quantity limits.
Also 7/7 In Philadelphia a class action lawsuit is filed against the federal
government by attorney Lawrence Elliott Hirsch representing Kiyoshi Kirumiya
of
Philly and 165 other medical marijuana users seeking a judgment “declaring the
therapeutic cannabis prohibition is unconstitutional and that The People are
free to use it for their health without control or interference by the government
of the United States of America.” In a 128-page brief, Hirsch
will assert, “The right to consume, ingest or smoke a plant that grows wild in
nature, such as cannabis, is antecedent to, and more fundamental than the right
to vote...” In SF the federal government files a motion with Judge Breyer
asking that the U.S. Marshal be authorized immediately to close down the cannabis
clubs in Oakland, Marin and Ukiah.
July 14 An Aurora, Illinois, pediatrician is arrested for growing 20 indoor
plants.... A Brooklyn assistant DA is arrested outside a Led Zeppelin
reunion concert on charges of marijuana and hashish possession.
July 14/20 U.S. Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, on “a fact-finding mission” in
Holland, insults his hosts by claiming that their liberal policies have resulted
in widespread drug abuse and a high murder rate. The Dutch Ambassador corrects
him and the Washington Times (which printed McCaffrey’s claims
uncritically): “Your reporter... was told clearly and plainly that the homicide
rate in the Netherlands was 1.8 per 100,000, which is one-fifth that of the U.S.
rate of 8.2 per 100,000. He was also told that the incidence of cannabis use
in the Netherlands was 4.6 percent of the total population vs. 6 percent in the
U.S. and that the incidence of youth drug use was almost 50% less than in the
U.S. in recent years. In fact, U.S. government data show that in 1995, almost
50% of high school seniors had tried an illegal substance, which is much higher
than the 30.2% attributed to the Netherlands.” Holland’s Health Minister
Else Borst says of her interaction with McCaffrey, “When I say we prefer young
people only experiment with cannabis, he just falls silent and
gazes ahead.” Some fact-finder.
July 16 The Pentagon is trying to persuade Panama to create a “multinational
couternarcotics center” that would house more than 2,000 U.S. troops. (If a
new agreement is not reached, all U.S. military forces must leave Panama by
the end of ’99.)... The Fresno Bee reports, “The 9-year-old boy who tipped
deputies to his parents’ suspected marijuana crop remained in the custody of
Fresno County’s Children Protective Services Wednesday, along with his 10-year-od
sister.” The boy called 911 because his parents were having a fight,
then showed the cops their crop -two plants. “The couple were jailed
briefly before being released on their own recognizance... A man at their home
said Wednesday that he didn’t want to talk about the
incident. ‘Why don’t they just leave us alone?’ said the man, who refused to
give his name. ‘We’re just hard-working Americans.’” [In Catholic school, M.
was told that the Soviets were so evil they encouraged kids to turn in their
parents. I was taught the Nazis did it.]
Also in July A study in the Journal of the American Medical
Association followed 13,625 cancer patients released in nursing homes.
Of those in daily
pain, 16% received a mild pain reliever such as aspirin, Tylenol or Advil;
32% received codeine or a similiar drug; 26% received morphine; and 26% received
nothing at all.” Co-author Vincent Mor of the Centre for Gerontology and Health
Care Research at Brown University says “Drugs, particuarly narcotic pain killers,
are not viewed positively by nurses and doctors. There’s a very strong worry
about addiction.” The study concludes, “Daily pain is prevalent among nursing
home residents with cancer and is often untreated, particularly among older and
minority patients.”
July 20 An audit by Peat Marwick determines that the DEA has
no system for keeping track of property and equipment, cannot document
more than $5 million in purchases made last year, and has no reliable
records for its
inventory of seized drugs.
July 22 Representatives Bill McCollum of Florida and Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio
propose a $2.6 billion “Western Hemisphere Drug Eradication Act” —part of an
effort by Republicans to pump up the interdiction budget. They claim that the
acquisition of 10 modernized Navy P-3 patrol aircraft (refurbished by Lockheed-Martin
for $43 million per) will help cut the flow of drugs into the U.S. by 80 percent
over three years. DANGER DANGER DANGER!
July 23-25 The International Cannabinoid Research Society meets in La Grand
Motte, France.
July 24 Peter McWilliams, a best-selling writer/publisher,
is indicted along with Todd McCormick and seven others on charges of
conspiring to “manufacture” marijuana for medical use. McWilliams,
who has AIDS complicated by non-Hodgkin lymphoma, has been on a complex
regimen of protease inhibitors and anti-virals since 1996. He was arrested
for helping finance
gardens in four locations (including McCormick’s infamous “Bel Air
mansion”). Under federal mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, he and
McCormick each face at least 10 years. McWilliams says he was denied access
to his AIDS medications while in custody.
Also 7/28 The Oakland City Council unanimously approves an ordinance
sponsored by Nate Miley, that designates the Oakland club to enforce
the
state’s marijuana laws, i.e. to provide marijuana to seriously ill Californians
as per Prop 215. Lawyer Rob Raich, who devised the plan, thinks
that being named “officers of the city” should give staffers the same protection
that narcs have under the federal Controlled Substances Act to possess and sell
marijuana! “The Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative runs a clean, legitimate
business, contributes to Oakland’s downtown revialization, and prevents seriously
ill people from turning to the streets to
buy their medicine,” says Miley.
July 29 The international basketball federation (FIBA) votes to penalize the
use of mj by players in its tournments... In Ontario, Canada, the London Cannabis
Compassion Centre is open for business at 199 Wellington St.; proprietor Lynn
Harichy has MS. Husband Mike makes deliveries to most of the 40 or so clients,
who are too ill to come get their own. The centre sells quarter ounces for
$65
-about $10 below street price. Requirement of a doctror’s recommendation
waived for persons over 65. The Harichys decided not to run the operation our
of
their home because they didn’t want their children exposed to a police raid.
July 30 “The Washington State Medical Use of Marijuana Act” —Initiative
692— makes the ballot after AMR underwrites the collection of 260,000
signatures.
July 31 Breyer grants a motion to have the case against Flower
Therapy
dismissed. The club lost its lease after its proprietors were indicted.
Rumors abound that some staffers are working for a club associated with ACT-UP
in the Castro... Judge Robert Fitzgerald allows the prosecutor of Marvin Chavez
access to patient records seized from the Orange County Co-op.
August 4 To the dismay of his lawyers, Marvin Chavez (who has spent
90 days in jail awaiting trial) rejects a deal that would mean no prison time.
Copping a plea would also enable Chavez to use marijuana —but not distribute
it. “I’m not trying to save the world,” says Chavez, “but I’m an American and
I’m willing to stand for my civil rights.” Chavez suffers from a rare spinal
disorder and is in the early stages of Lou Gehrig’s disease.
August 5 Republican leaders quash a plan by two Republican Congressmen
to require drug testing of House members and their staffs, the Associated Press
Reports. “We have a few well-placed people who don’t want
this,” says Rep. Joe Barton, a co-sponsor of the proposal. Rep John Boehner of
Ohio has refused to allow the plan to be brought up for discussion. Majority
Leader Dick Armey of Texas told reporters there isn’t time to take up the matter
before the August recess. Many lawmakers have complained that the measure is
unnecessary and insulting. This is the same crew that overwhelmingly passed
the “Drug Free Workplace Act of 1998” to expand mandatory workplace testing among
ordinary UC citizens.
August 6 Happy Hiroshima Day. Congressman Bob Barr, Republican
of Georgia, introduces House Resolution 4380, amending the FY 1999 Washington
DC
budget to prohibit the certification of election results on Initiative 59. “None
of the funds contained in this act may be used to conduct any ballot initiative
which seeks to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession,
use, or distribution of any schedule I substance under the Controlled Substance
Act, or any tetrahydrocannabinols derivative.” Sic, sick,
sic. [D.C.’s 530,000 residents don’t even have a representative in Congress,
only an “observer.”] Co-sponsor Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois,
says he’s thinking of the safety of constituents who come to visit
the nation’s capitol.
August 10 Colorado Secreratry of State Vicky Buckley rules that
AMR did not submit enough valid signatures to place the medical marijuana initaitve
on the ballot... In weeks to come a Denver District Court judge will order
the measure placed on the ballot; then the Colorado Supreme Court will order
Buckley
to make a line-by-line count.
August 11 The Wall St. Journal reports that many big HMOs “hoped to turn tidy
profits by offering the elderly an alternative to traditional fee-for-service
Medicare. But soaring drug prices, federal Medicare budget tightening and management
miscalculations have dashed their dreams. Instead, the HMOs are scrambling
to close some money-losing Medicare plans and raise charges for others. Their
actions are jolting patients and raising questions about the
government’s effort to cut Medicare costs by encouraging even more elderly beneficiaries
to sign up for managed care in coming years.”
August 11 or 12 Michale Ganey’s residence WHERE is raided by a multijurisdictional
Narcotics Task Force. “We know you’re growing mj,
show us where it is.” Ganey, exonerated earlier in the year, shows them. They
yank some 30 plants, mostly seedlings, and charge him with cultivation.
August 14 Heavily armed DEA agents invade Dennis Peron’s Lake County
Cannabis Farm and destroy 130 plants nearing maturity. The feds don’t
file charges against the heartbroken patients, who ask “Should the DEA systematically
raid the homes of seriously ill persons and remove doctor-approved medications
with no trial or concern for the health or well-being of the person trying
to recover? Why would they want to? Is the ‘war on pot’ more important than
saving lives in an epidemic? Does federal prohibition against marijuana apply
to individual cancer patients cultivating one or two plants to help mitigate
the pain so they can stay in chemotherapy?” Lake County Sheriff Rodney
Mitchell says he thinks the farmers wanted to get
raided as a publicity stunt. “Otherwise, why would they fax me a copy [of an
invitation to an open house]? why would they fax the DEA one? Why would they
put
it on their web site, which the DEA monitors every day?”
Also 8/14 Chris Webber, a great basketball player under contract to the
Sacramento Kings, is fined $500 for carrying less than half an ounce of marijuana
in his luggage while passing through the airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Webber has been labeled a troublemaker because, as a rookie, he told his coach
not to shout insults at him. This episode will cost him his endorsement deal
with Fila.
August 14 A second judge (the first being on vacation) rules
that Marvin Chavez cannot defend his marijuana distribution on the basis of
Prop
215. “To forbid any mention of Prop 215 at Marvin Chavez’s trial is to
perpetrate a fiction in the courtroom and deny the jury relevant information.” —The
Orange County Register.
August 20 The Religious Freedom Protection Act, introduced by Sen.
Joe Baca, passes the California Senate (having previously passed the
assembly). Pebbles Trippet calls it “perhaps the most important religious freedom
statement since the People v. Woody case, which confirmed Native
Americans’ right to use sacramental peyote. It’s the California counterpart to
the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, originally passed by the U.S. congress
in 1993, only to be voided as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in June ’97.
Its purpose is to codify the principle that government should not substantially
burden religious exercise without compelling justification and only by the least
restrictive means consistent with that.
“It also provides a claim or defense to persons whose religious
exercise is substantially burdened by government. It will provide protection
for religious minorities as intended by the federal RFRA, and can be used by
religious minorities whose use of marijuana is spritual and sacramental, such
as
Rastafarians, Hindus, Sufis, Coptic Christians, etc.”
Gov. Pete Wilson will veto it.
August 21 “It is impossible to fight the massive cannabis trade in Greenland
as it involves the whole of society, “ Hans Haahr, chief of the national Drug
Squad, tells Radio Greenland. Haahr estimates that the trade in cannabis is
equivalent to nearly 10 percent of the annual gross national product. Of all
places!
August 31 Judge Charles Breyer rejects as “creative, but not
persuasive,” Oakland’s argument that under the federal Controlled Substances
Act, city officers enforcing local drug ordinances are immune from prosecution
for possessing, buying and selling illicit drugs in the course of their work,
i.e., they have the same rights as narcs. Breyer turns down the Justice
Department’s request that the clubs be immediately found in contempt of court
and closed. A lawyer from the downtown San Francisco firm of Morrison & Foster,
invited by Rob Raich to join the Oakland club’s defense team, requests a jury
trial on the question of whether the club could operate under a “medical necessity
finding.”
September 2 In a pamphlet by Utah criminology professor Gerald
Smith —introduction by Senator Orrin Hatch— parents of teenagers
are warned
that marijuana use may be indicated by “excessive preoccupation with social causes,
race relations, environmental issues, etc...”
The Lancet publishes a study of the lifestyles young British doctors. Some
93% are found to drink alcohol, 60% to excess. More than 35% of the men and
19% of the women use cannabis, with more than 11% doing so regularly... A study
published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine concludes that marijuana use
is not associated with injuries requiring outpatient treatment. The investigators
tracked 1,611 members of a California HMO over three years.
Sept. 5 In Nevada, the Secretary of State qualifies AMR’s medical
mj initiative; it’s on the ballot as “Question 9.” Gov. Bob Miller, Attorney
General Frankie Sue Del Papa and Highway Patrol Chief Michael Hood all come
out in opposition. The sheriff of Las Vegas calls it “an absolute
scam.” The chief of the state Division of Investigations predicts drug defendants
will clog the courts with spurious medical defenses. They all take solace in
the primacy of federal law.
Sept. 10 An innovative solution to the doctors’ dilemma is
set forth in a Sept. 15 “memorandom of understanding” between District Attorney
Mike Mullins and the county medical association’s board of
directors.The SCMA’s 21-member Professional Standards and Conduct Committee —which
reviews malpractice cases and complaints lodged against physicians— will
review members’ recommendations of marijuana on a case-by-case basis, creating
a measure of collective responsibility. physicians treating AIDS patients
in the Guerneville area.
Sept. 12 Singer-songwriter Buzzy Linhart, a glaucoma patient who says “I
would be blind without marijuana,” is busted and jailed in Berkeley for cultivation
of 12 plants in his backyard. A neighbor’s complaint about some kids trying
to cut through their yards brought the police, who reviewed his bona
fide doctor’s recommendation, helped him bring the plants indoors, and left.
Sept. 13 An ambitious Berkeley cop obtains a warrant to search Buzzy
Linhart’s house by failing to inform a judge of her fellow officers’ conclusions.
His plants plus small amounts of processed mj and hash are confiscated, and
he is arrested. [Linhart wrote Bette Midler’s first big hit, “Friends.”]
Sept. 16 House Joint Resolution 117 —a “sense of the Congress” resolution
reiterating that marijuana is dangerous and addictive and should not be legalized
for medical use- passes by 310-93, with no public hearings. The American people
are urged to vote no on medical marijuana initiatives. A multiple sclerosis
patient seeking to discuss the bill with Rep. Bill McCollum, Renee Emry
Wolfe, 38, of Ann Arbor —pregnant with her fourth
child—goes into spasm in his office and lights up a joint for relief. She is
promptly arrested.
Sept. 17 The Vancouver Province reveals that Vancouver police used US
Navy undercover agents to gather evidence for marijuana busts at Hemp B.C.
and the Cannabis Cafe back in April. Court documents show that four U.S. agents
were named in an application for a search warrant that led to a raid on the
stores in
late April. A lawyer for the woman who owned the stores calls the U.S.
involvement “absolutely bizarre.”
Sept. 21 Human rights activists accuse Moscow police of planting drugs
on suspects -on orders from political or criminal groups seeking to compromise
their enemies. An editor who ran for mayor of Kirov and the head of an
agricultural concern say they were framed. In Russia -where more than 63,000
people were arrested on drug charges in ’97- teachers are being paid in vodka.
Sept. 22 The LA Times informs employees that they are not allowed to
consume hemp nutritional products. An internal managers’ report states, “Hemp
oil, hemp seed and seed sweetie goodies will cause a positive drug test on
accident-related drug testing programs within the Times.” The report conludes
that “employees are not to eat these products.” But seed sweetie goodies
remain legal, and the sweetie-goodie defense has been upheld in
court.
Sept. 23 Placer County Sheriffs raid Georgia and Michael Baldwin's home with
guns drawn. The couple are arrested despite recommendations for the use of
medicinal marijuana written by their physician, Alex Stalcup, MD. “Proposition
215 does not apply in Placer County,” a deputy comments. The police tell
the local media, “the whole house has been turned into a marijuana growing
and packaging operation” —a charge that will
adversely affect the Baldwins’s dental practice. “What they did find,” according
to Dr. Baldwin, “was less than an ounce of usable marijuana, 96 marijuana plants,
20 of which were two-to-three feet tall, 16 of them were one foot tall, and the
rest were two to four inches tall. And they found 50 cuttings that had just been
started and had no roots at all... The entire garden that was seized fits into
two grocery bags.”
Sept. 24 Campaigning against Measure 67, Multnomah County Sheriff Dan
Noelle claims marijuana “contributes to violent and assaultive behavior.” Portland
psychologist Roger Burt says mj is “definitely in the big leagues of
addiction.” The Oregon Medical Association remains neutral, the AMA is opposed
to Measure 67, which allows patients with a doctor’s recommendation to grow up
to seven plants and possess an ounce of dried mj.
Sept. 29 A letter supporting House Resolution 117 from Deputy
DA Carl Armbrust —who prosecuted Dave Herrick and is prosecuting Marvin
Chavez— appears in the Orange County Register. Dismissing the Californians
who voted for Prop 215 as a “relatively small handful of people who want
to smoke pot,” Armbrust concludes, “Congress did the right thing. In the words
of the office of National Drug Control Policy, ‘Medicine must be based on science
rather than ideology...’” In Germany, a committee of the House of Representatives
of the State of Berlin unanimously endorses the medical use of cannabis. The
committee consists of members of all parties.
Sept. 30 Heather Gordon of Miami, a 23-year-old political science
student who had been accepted for a White House internship, is rejected after
answering “yes” to a question about having smoked marijuana costs her her security
clearance... Companies that do drug testing have significantly
lower productivity than comparable companies that do not, according to a study
by Edward M. Shepard and Thomas J. Clifton of the Le Moyne College Institute
of Industrial Relations. They surveyed 63 firms in the computer and communications
equipment industries and found that both pre-employment and random drug testing
had a significant negative effect on worker output. They speculate that testing
may be a waste of resources or might
hurt employee morale
October 7 A retired Penn State chemistry professor who had staged four
symbolic marijuana “smokeouts” to protest the prohibition is found guilty after
a judge tells the jury, “Even if you don’t like the law, you must
follow it.” Julian Heickle, who represented himself, had told the jury “The state
is trying to punish me for exercising a God-given right to own a
vegetable.”
Also 10/7 E-mail from Brenda Kerhsenbaum: “Sister Somayah is being held at
the 77th and Broadway jail in downtown LA. Somayah, who grows cannabis for
medical use for herself, and other medical patients who held letters from phsyicians,
was arrested by four LAPD narcotics police who said she had too many plants.
She grew 30, all small except for two large, and that the letter she showed
them was dated 1997! One of the police was an officer she had lodged a complaint
against with the city council. Recently she petitioned the city council in
her district to be aware of her legal pharm. She is being held on $50,000 bond.
She said the jail is very cold, and we do not think she has her medicine. Somayah
suffers from sickle cell disease, a very painful ailment, and she uses cannabis
to relieve the pain. She can go to the Veterans Administration any time for
morphine. She greatly prefers cannabis. We have attempted to contact Kenny
Kahn, who helped her previously. Also, Scott Imler is trying to find some legal
assistance for her...”
Oct. 7 Peter McWilliams files suit against Attorney General Dan Lungren in
Superior Court in Los Angeles. The suit, which charges the AG with four
breaches of the California Constitution, asks for no monetary damages -only
that he fulfill his oath of office...President Clinton signs the Higher Education
Act of 1998, which would deny student loans to convicted drug offenders -but
not to murderers or thieves... The Patients and Caregivers Health Center is
open for
business on Mission St. in San Francisco...
October 8 Six marines have been arrested and at least seven others are
under investigation for marijuana and steroids use, according to Camp Pendleton
officials. Five of the arrested men were helicopter mechanics; the other worked
at the Substance Abuse Control Center on base and allegedly helped Marines
alter
the results of their drug tests.
Oct. 9 Sophomore Jennifer Treisch appeals to administrators at
Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina, to lift a ban on necklaces
made of hemp twine. Treisch, one of several students who have taken up necklace
making, says, “I like the look of natural things, and I see hemp as a strong
and natural fibre. The rule is really pointless. The administration is focusing
more on enforcing rules than on our education.”
Oct. 10 Pharmacologists from the University of Adelaide —in
the largest-ever study correlating road accidents with drug and alcohol
use— find that drivers who had smoked marijuana were marginally less likely to
have an accident than those who were drug-free. A study spokesman, Dr. Jason
White, said the slight difference could be explained by anecdotal evidence that
marijuana smokers were more cautious and drove more slowly because of altered
time perception. White said the study showed the importance of concentrating
efforts on alcohol rather than other drugs... The Lancet publishes a major study
of car crashes by Scottish researchers, revealing a strong link to tranquilizer
use.
Oct. 13 Judge Charles Breyer rejects the “medical necessity” argument
and authorizes U.S. marshals to shut down the Oakland Cannabis Buyers
Cooperative. Lawyer Rob Raich paraphrases Breyer’s reasoning in rejecting
the medical-necessity argument: “Even though members testified that medical
cannabis has actually saved their lives, they didn’t say they would die tomorrow
without it.” Breyer says the Marin Alliance can have a jury trial on the narrow
issue of whether they actually distributed marijuana on the day a federal agent
said they did (in a report too shoddy for Breyer’s taste). Breyer also
rejects the clubs’ challenge to the “rational basis” of the
government’s marijuana prohibition, saying he doesn’t have the authority to evaluate
it.
Oct. 15 In Edwardsville, Illinois, Wesley Earl Lowry and his wife, foster
parents in court to adopt children ages four and six (whom they’ve been raising
for two years) are busted for possession of 4.9 grams of marijuana and may
now lose the kids... A NORML analysis of DEA marijuana eradication data reveals
that law enforcement eradicated over 237 million feral hemp plants (“ditchweed”) in ’97,
along with four million cultivated plants.
Oct. 16 A 73-year old Rabbi named Eli Gottesman is arrested for
allegedly trying to smuggle a bottle of shampoo filled with cocaine and marijuana
into a federal prison in upstate New York. “God knows I didn’t do anything
wrong,” says the former “Rabbi of the Year.”
Oct. 18 Colorado Secretary of State Victoria Buckley, a Republican, rules
that there aren’t enough valid signatures for Colorado’s medical marijuana
initiative to qualify for the ballot. Buckley claims that a line-by-line check
turned up 36, 911 invalid signatures —out of 88,715, total— so the measure
fell short by 2,338.
Oct. 18 Police chiefs from the 52 largest cities in the US and Canada, convening
in Salt Lake City, oppose ballot initiatives for the legalization of marijuana
for medical use. “Decisions about medicine in our country should be based on
science, not popular votes,” says the organization’s president Charles Ramsey,
chief of the Washington, D.C. , echoing Barry McCaffrey... Oct. 18 At
their annual convention, the American Association of Pediatrics hears marijuana
denounced by Hoover Adger, Jr. MD, of the Drug Czar’s office, who
says “If pot is a medicine, teens will rightfully conclude that it’s good for
you. That sends the wrong message.”
Oct. 19 At 5 p.m. the Oakland Cannabis co-op closes for business, as
ordered by Judge Breyer. The co-op, which served some 2,000 members,
had
been operating in defiance of Breyer’s May 13 order with the support of the city
government. The city council had deputized the club’s staff in an attempt to
comply with federal law (based on the same clause that entitles narcs to buy
and sell controlled substances). Gerlad Uelmen is convinced that Breyer will
be
reversed for dismissing the co-op’s “joint user” argument, which holds that the
members formed one legal entity to obtain their marijuana, therefore no act of
distribution occured...
Also 10/19 In Texas, Stephen Hale, the Democratic candidate for Denton
County district attorney pleads guilty to delivery of marijuana and gets two
years probation. Arrested in March for giving a woman a quarter ounce, Hale chose
not to withdraw from the race. “The people who would support me don’t care about
my giving a little bit of marijuana to a former girlfriend, and those who hate
me will hate me anyway,” he says. The former girlfriend, he adds, “was strung
out on Valium.” As Wise County attorney from 1993 through 96, Hale dismissed
several hundred marijuana cases. He told the Dallas Morning News that he developed
his relaxed attitude towards pot as a GI in Vietnam. He was busted for
possession there, too, but escaped a felony conviction and was able to get his
law degree. In 1994 Wise County police groups called for his
resignation. Hale says, “Almost every GI I knew smoked marijuana,
but I got caught. I came home from serving my country on felony probation for
not hurting anybody... I dismissed over 500 marijuana cases because I did not
see how it was in the interest of justice to punish someone for a victimless
offense. That’s still how I feel about it.” PEBBLES HOW DID HE DO IN THE
ELECITON? ATTORNEYS JERRY COBB AND RICKY P ERRITT . DENTON, TEXAS NEAR
DALLAS?
Oct. 21 At a pretrial hearing, Justice Dept. lawyers move for dismissal of
the
class action suit challenging the federal government’s prohibition of cannabis
-Kuromiya vs. the US- on the grounds that Congress can ban anything it wants
for whatever reason. In response to a question by Judge Marvin Katz, the government
lawyers acknowledge that the U.S. provides marijuana to eight patients under
the compassionate use program. [In the 1970s, in response to a lawsuit by patients,
the US Dept of Health and Human Services began supplying up to 300 joints a month
to people with documented medical needs. The government closed the program to
new applicants in 1992, when many AIDS patients sought to join.] Judge
Katz, a Reagan appointee who used to be Arlen Specter’s law partner, likens the
government’s approach to providing morphine to only eight people, and refuses
to dismiss the suit. He surprises all involved by proposing a settlement whereby
the government would distribute mj to the plaintiffs in “a carefully monitored,
scientifically controlled program” that would yield “useful scientific research
results that would help decide whether marijuana was medically beneficial or
not.” The stunned government lawyers respond that the proposal is
unacceptable, but Judge Katz orders them to consult with their higher-ups. Hirsch
comments that it’s the first time “any judge in the federal system has taken
such a rational and compassionate approach.”
Also Oct. 21 The Ottawa Sun reports: “Mounties will use teddy bears to
help ease the fears of terrified tots whose parents are on the receiving end
of
a drug raid. It’s amazing what a difference handing a brand-new teddy bear to
a sobbing three-year-old can make, says RCMP constable Jean-Louis Rompre, who
spearheaded Project Comfort. Rompre said. ‘It just clicked when I saw a little
girl a few months ago. She was so afraid and just kept crying...’”
Oct. 24 Behind in the polls and increasingly desperate, Dan Lungren takes
to pot-baiting Gray Davis. At a campaign stop in Fresno, the Examiner reports, “Lungren
scoffs at Davis’ optimism, joking that the Democrat might have taken Proposition
215, which allows the use of medicinal marijuana, too
seriously.” Does Lungren’s “joke” have any implication other than that Davis
smokes mariuana?
Oct. 12 In Sacramento, Bob Ames is arrested at his home in Sacramento
for cultivation of 32 medical cannabis plants. He will be charged with cultivation
for sale.
Oct. 20 Dentist Michael Baldwin and his wife Georgia are
arraigned in Auburn municipal court for cultivation of 146 plants being grown
indoors. Lungren has instructed prosecutors that one ounce per months is sufficient
for all patients, and that each plant yields a pound. Patients contend that
indoor plants typically yield 1/2 ounce. The Baldwins have recommendations
from their doctor DETAILS? 916-632-7692
Oct. 26 Campaigning in Oregon against Measure 67, Dr. Donald Vereen,
an aide to Barry McCaffrey, says the validity of medical marijuana should be
up to
federal health officials. “We don’t want something determined to be a medicine
because a bunch of people voted on it.”
Oct. 22 Congress passes the “Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act,” introduced
by Rep. Bill McCollum R.- Florida and Sen. Mike DeWine R.- Ohio. It will
allocate $23 million to scientists developing a fungus genetically engineered
to destroy opium poppies and coca plants. “These micro-organisms have the potential
to cripple drug crops before they are even harvested,” according to DeWine.
The obviously insane scheme to eradicate plants that mankind spent thousands
of years breeding is hailed by the chairman of the House Foreign Relations
Committee, Benjamin Gilman, R.-N.Y. as a “silver bullet... extremely effective,
not costly, doesn’t affect the environment and is a good way of eradicating
coca.” [Ed. Note: DANGER DANGER DANGER. ]
Oct. 27 Back in federal court in San Francisco, Bill Panzer, representing
the Marin Alliance, argues that Breyer has the jurisdiction to hear arguments
on “the rational basis of the government’s prohibition of marijuana.
Oct. 29 In New York, Derrick Smith, facing his third conviction for marijuana
sales, jumps through a courthouse window and falls 16 stories to his
death. State Supreme Court Justice Budd Goodman had offered Smith three
to
six years in prison in exchange for a guilty plea. “I’m 19 years old, your honor.
That is terrible. That’s terrible,” Smith told the judge, who then set his trial
date. As Smith was led from the courtroom to a secure area, he ran, jumped on
a bench in front of the window and leaped to his death. Smith’s mother was among
the spectators in the courtroom who heard the commotion; she ran behind a partition,
saw the open window and the court officer there alone. “I thought his mother
was going to have a nervous breakdown,” said a court
employee. “She kept saying, ‘That’s my son. That’s my son.’”
Also 10/29 The ACLU challenges the Barr amendment forbidding Washington, D.C.
to count the votes on Initiative 59. The DC Board of Elections and Ethics,
named as a defendant, responds by joining the suit as a plaintiff, arguing
that Congress is violating the first amendment rights of DC residents. The
Clinton Justice
Department says it will defend Congress’s right to deny DC home rule... Barbara
Bush appears in TV ads made by the Drug Free America Foundation for airing in
states with medical marijuana intiatives: “Now is not the time,” the former first
lady declares, “to send the message to our young people that
marijuana is ‘medicine.’ It is not. It is a dangerous, illegal drug.” Ex-presidents
Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George Bush all issue statements denouncing the
initiatives in the name of Science. Operatives from
McCaffrey’s staff are barnstorming and firing off op-ed pieces. Their strategy
is obvious now: a stall in the name of science. “No one argues that
people should eat moldy bread instead of taking a penicillin capsule,” writes
McCaffrey. [He never mentions that penicillin was approved for use after
its efficacy was proven on just six patients.] “If components of marijuana
other than THC are found to be medically valuable,” McCaffrey
concludes, “the current scientific process will approve those components for
safe use.” Having claimed for years that the mj plant had no beneficial
effects whatsoever, the drug warriors are now promising to deliver us the “good” part
of the plant without the “bad.”
Oct. 30 Contra Costa County agrees to pay $1.2 million to settle damage claims
of general assistance welfare applicants who, over the past six years, had
been
required to take a “Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory” -on the basis
of which they’d been subject to drug testing. Some 5,000 GA recipients
may be eligible for relief. ACLU lawyer Brad Seligman established that the test
was totally unreliable and inaccurate... Paul McCartney says his wife Linda,
who died in the spring, had smoked marijuana to ease the discomfort of chemotherapy
-with a doctor’s approval... The Oakland club is permitted by Judge
Breyer to reopen as an educational resource and purveyor of hemp products. Rumors
abound that cannabis is being dispensed to club members at
a nearby location.
Nov 1. The Boston Globe runs “A Realistic Prescription to Mix Marijuana and
Moderation” by Thomas W. Clark, an addiction researcher. “Despite its
bad official press, THC actually ranks lowest in addictive potential of all
commonly used substances, even below caffeine, according to two independent
raitings by NIDA and the University of California. Lab animals cannot be induced
to consistenly self-administer THC, as they can with opiates, amphetamines,
cocaine, alcohol, and nicotine... How strict are we willing to get to suppress
a drug that, used in moderation and in a non-smoked form, is no more risky
(subtracting the risks of criminal prosecution) than having an occasional glass
of wine with dinner?”
November 3 Residents of Washington, D.C. get to vote on Initiative
59 because ballots were printed before Congress prohibited the results to be
certified, but the votes are not tallied -the first time in American history
that a voted has been voided thus. An exit poll paid for by AMR shows
Initiative 59 winning by a 69-31 margin... In Arizona, Proposition 300, which
would approve the state legislature’s override of the 1996 vote allowing medical
use of all schedule I drugs, loses by a 57-43 margin... In Colorado, Initiative
19 -which will not count unless a federal court overrules the Secretary of
State- passes by 57-43. .. In Alaska, Proposition 8 passes by 58-42... In Nevada
Question 9 is answered yes by 59% of the voters... In Oregon Measure
67 wins 55-45 and Measure 57, which would have recriminalized possession,
loses by 33-67... In Washington State Initiative 692 passes by 59-41 and carries
every county.... In Minnesota, Jesse Ventura is elected governor on the Reform
Party ticket; he recognizes the war on drugs as a failure, wants to reintroduce
industrial hemp... And in California, Bill Lockyer
wins the AG’s race by a 9% margin over Stirling, and Lungren himself goes down
in the governor’s race to Gray Davis. [Deceased Sheriff Sherman Block outpolled
Lungren by 86,000 votes in LA County.] In Mendocino County, voters elect a sheriff,
Tony Craver, and district attorney Norman Vroman -a Libertarian- who advocate
the decriminalization of marijuana. In Orange County, Mike Carona, a candidate
bitterly opposed by Brad Gates, is elected sheriff.
Year Three: Affirmative Action
For Medical Marijuana Users
Nov. 5 Lockyer tells the 10 o’clock news that Lungren was “obsessed” with
marijuana. “We used to say he must own a copy of Reefer Madness and watch it
every night...”The incoming AG reveals that his mother died at 50 and his sister
at 39, both from leukemia. “You don’t have to see this very much before you
start to say, ‘If they are in pain like this then why can’t they have access
to this medicine?’”
Also 11/5 The DEA publishes a notice in The Federal Register proposing to move
Marinol —synthetic THC made by Unimed Pharmaceuticals— from Schedule II to
Schedule III. “It could just sit there for a long, long time,” explains
a Washington insider. But eternal optimist Dennis Peron comments, “All
these years they’ve been saying ‘you don’t need marijuana because Marinol is
the same thing.’ Which means they’re thinking about putting marijuana in Schedule
III, too.” Schedule II drugs (such as cocaine, morphine, and methamphetamine)
are recognized as having medical use but
a high potential for abuse. Schedule III drugs have accepted medical use
and a lower potential for abuse (such as aspirin with codeine). The move follows
a study showing that there is virtually no street market for Marinol.
Nov. 6 Glenn Levant, the head of DARE, complains to the LA Times
that the use of a cannabis leaf in ads for Alterna Hemp Shampoo “is a
subterfuge to promote marijuana.” Levant, a former deputy Los Angeles police
chief , founded the private nonprofit to promote his “Drug Abuse Resistance
Education” program to schoolchildren nationwide....
Nov. 8 The Willamette Week reports that Portland defense lawyers “are up in
arms after discovering that the police have been secretly tracing phone calls
-perhaps for years- to get leads on suspect marijuana growers. The Portland
police Marijuana Task Force put a “trap” on the phone line of American Agriculture,
a store that sold indoor growing equipment. They traced incoming calls
and paid unannounced “knock-and-talk” visits to the homes
from which they’d been placed. Defense lawyers say the police illegally obtained
the court order to install the trap... The Interior Minister of
Germany’s new government -a coalition of Social Democrats and Greens- says the
ban on possession of cannabis will be reviewed.
Nov. 10 After many delays, the trial of Marvin Chavez is underway
in Orange County Superior Court. Judge Thomas Borris denies Chavez the right
to use
a Prop 215 defense, on the grounds that he wasn’t an authentic “primary
caregiver” to club members Shirley Reaves and Gene Hoffer. Defense lawyers
J. David Nick and James Silva focus on entrapment. An undercover agent from the
DA’s office, Joseph Moreno acknowledges he provided Chavez with a
phony doctor’s recommmendation —after Chavez rejected a recommendation from a
phony chiropractor. Nick establishes that the 1/8th oz bag was labelled “Not
for Sale” and had the name of the Orange County Patient Doctor Nurse Support
Group on it; and that Chavez had explained to the narc his rights under Prop
215.
Also 11/10 Federal health officials reject a proposal from neurologist
Ethan Russo to compare smoked marijuana to synthetic THC and an injected painkiller
in acute migraine treatment. “Our bureaucrats,” says Russo, “are ignoring
the science, as well as the rising tide of public opinion that is clamoring for
clinical studies of cannabis...” The House of Lords Select Committee on
Science and Technology recommends that the government immediately move marijuana
to schedule II so doctors can prescribe it and pharmacists provide it. The 70-page
report states, “We have received enough anecdotal evidence to convince us that
cannabis almost certainly does have genuine medical applications, especially
in treating the painful muscular spasms and other symptoms of MS and in the control
of other forms of pain... We therefore recommend that clinical trials of cannabis
for the treatment of MS and chronic pain should be mounted as a matter of urgency.
We warmly welcome the fact that, in the course of our inquiry, both Dr. Geoffrey
Guy of GW
Pharmaceuticals, and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s working group under Sir
William Asscher, have set off down this route.” The Lords also call
for the development of cannabinoid drugs and safer delivery devices. Some
of the same scientists who had input into the House of Lords report have also
contributed to the upcoming Institute of Medicine report, which will cover a
lot of the the same ground. Can we expect similar recommendations?
The British Home Office Minister promptly counters, “there is no scientific
evidence that it will work,” and rejects the Lords’ recommendation. The British
Medical Association backs the Home Office, according to James Landale of the
Times (UK), because making cannabis available by prescription would reduce
the drug companies’ incentive to develop more effective drugs.
November 14 The Lancet publishes a study by Wayne Hall and Nadia Solowij (University
of Southern New Wales, Sydney) on “the most likely undesirable
effects of cannabis.” The researchers, having reviewed all the medical
literature, list respiratory complications (notably bronchitis) and highway
accidents (risk increases with use of alcohol). Longterm heavy use can
be associated with “subtle” alterations of cognitive function (memory, attention,
comprehension) and a risk of “dependence.” Hall and Solowij say nobody knows
if these effects are reversible... Cannabis as a cause of mental illness is very
rare, although its use might accelerate the illness for individuals with psychotic
tendencies. The researchers conclude, “moderate indulgence in cannabis use has
little danger for health.” The Lancet
tones down its 1995 declaration -”smoking cannabis, even as a longterm habit,
is not dangerous for health”- but notes, “It would be reasonable to think that
cannabis is less a threat for health than alcohol and tobacco.”
NORML convenes in Washington, D.C... Geoffrey Guy reports that the plants GW
Pharmaceuticals is growing —under license from the Home Office!— will be ready
for harvest around Christmas. Using the model of a start-up biotech corporation,
he is forming a separate company to conduct clinical trials. Tod Mikuriya proposes
a collaboration. “Instead of waiting for the legislature to set up a University
of California project,” Mikuriya tells Guy,” the existing Cannabis Centers
can participate in a pharmaceutical research project supervised and administered
by physicians and scientists, in which GW Pharmaceuticals would supply cannabis
(from cultivars developed by Hortapharm)
with varying cannabinoid ratios,” and he, in California, would supervise trials
of their effects on different illnesses and conditions. Guy is interested
in collaboration of several sorts: “1. Direct supplying of medicine to participating
patients and centres. 2. Supplying of clones or seed stock and overseeing production
and distribution from contracting growers. 3. Biomonitoring of patients as they
are admininstered medicine through the inhaled route utilizing the internet or
other 2-way video.”
Nov. 17 In Manchester, England, Colin Davies, the founder of a co-op
that supplied free cannabis to people with multiple sclerosis is arrested for
cultivation, possession, and possession with intent to supply cannabis. Officers
remove 28 plants and his co-op records from his flat. Davis, who has
a painful, debilitating back condition, had already been exonerated in one
jury
trial.
Nov. 18 The widow of Sonny Bono blames his death in a skiing accident
on the prescription drugs he was taking (Valium and Vicodan) Congresswoman
Mary
Bono tells TV Guide that Sonny was taking “15, 20 maybe pills a day, all
prescribed by doctors, that badly impaired his judgment.” The drugs made him
moody, withdrawn and angry, and made their 12-year marriage “very difficult” according
to Mary. She also blamed the drugs for a 16-foot fall Sonny took off a
balcony two years before he died.
Nov. 19 After not being allowed to consider Proposition 215, the jury came
in
with a verdict in Marvin Chavez’s case around 9:45 am this morning. He had 10
charges against him, and was found not guilty on two charges, but guilty of 5
misdemeanors and 3 felonies in the rest.
Counts 1-5, where he was charged with felony sales to a patient and a caregiver
who were members of the club, the jury found him not guilty of felony sales,
but guilty of misdemeanor furnishing after hearing testimony from those involved
that they donated money to the Co-op and weren’t paying for the cannabis.
On counts 6 and 7, which involved undercover police, Marvin was found guilty
of felony sales. In one charge, he gave undercover narcs an ounce of cannabis
and the narcs voluntarily donated $80 to the Co-op. In the other, Marvin gave
undercover narcs 1/4 of on ounce and the police voluntarily donated $20 to
the
Co-op.
On counts 8 and 9, which involved another undercover narc, one who was a caregiver
for the undercover “patient” narc, the jury found Marvin not guilty. Police
had no tape recordings of those transactions. The narc involved in these counts
said Marvin called the cannabis a “lid.” Funny how he has never used that term
around any of us patients, and most of us wouldn’t even know what a lid is.
This narc also was a member of the California Narcotics Officers Association,
the organization which gave the largest donation to the anti-215 campaign.
Another narc in one of these charges testified onstage that he had seen a newspaper
article about Marvin, but had no idea how Marvin was trying to work under 215.
He also testified that he had no idea what Proposition 215 is. Being a narc
who has read about Marvin, that testimony is hard to
believe.
It is interesting that the jury found Marvin guilty of felony sales on two
of the charges that involved police entrapment and not guilty on the other
two police entrapment charges. Finding police entrapment on two of the charges
sends a message to police trying to pose as patients to infiltrate cannabis
co-ops and
harass sick people.
The tenth charge, for transportation of a package of cannabis to the post office,
where he tried to mail over an ounce (although the DA’s method of weighing
was questionable) of medicine to a patient living in Northern California. The
jury found him guilty of felony transportation in that charge.
Marvin will be sentenced on Friday, January 8. DA Carl Armbrust said he expected
Marvin to get about 7 years in prison. Attorney James Silva said he will file
an
appeal.
We need help with Marvin’s mounting legal costs. Most of us patients are on
limited incomes and have donated all we can spare, but we still have many unpaid
bills. Please send donations to: Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support
Group (OCPDNSG) Legal Defense Fund c/o The law Offices of James M. Silva 33
Clubhouse Ave. #3 Venice, Ca 92091. —Bill Britt
Also 11/19 Alterna Inc. sues Glenn Levant, the head of DARE America Inc., for
defamation, saying it will drop the suit if Levant retracts his slur on their
ad
campaign, paid their legal fees and bought “correctional advertising to inform
all Alterna customers of Levant’s inaccurate comments.” Levant calls the
suit “a cheap publicity gimmick...”
Nov. 21 Ed Plotner of Redding, a hepatitis patient who was denied a liver
transplant after testing positive for marijuana (which he used to combat severe
appetite and weight loss), dies. Banned by most transplant programs,
marijuana —unlike heroin, cocaine and alcohol— is not a risk factor for
hepatitis.
Nov. 22 The Marijuana Policy Project, analyzing the FBI’s annual Uniform
Crime Report, notes that the number of marijuana arrests -695,201-
was higher in 1997 than in any other year in U.S. history. Of the arrests were
for possession, the marijuana “sale/manufacture” (5.6%) and “possession” (38.3%)
by theie total number of arrests for all drug abuse violations. Some 37,000
non-violent marijuana offenders are incarcerated in federal and state prisons
and local jails in the U.S.... Also 11/22 Alan Leshner the director
of NIDA, responds to Thomas Clark’s “Realistic Prescription,” which appeared
in the Boston Globe Nov. 1. Leshner begins by dismissing the distinction
between hard and soft drugs —the distinction you would most want to impress
upon a kid if you really cared about their safety. He says
mj’s “high potential for abuse” is proven by the fact that “every year
more than 100,000 people, many of them adolescents, seek treatment for their
inability to control their marijuana use.” Leshner ignores the fact that
most are forced to “seek treatment” in order to work, or by the school/criminal
justice stystem. “Most people who are knowledgeable about addiction would
qualify this as an addictive drug,” Leshner asserts. We can expect to see
versions of Leshner’s letter to the Globe appearing elsewhere in the media as
the big Stall in the Name of Science unfolds. “Another science-based reason for
not condoning marijuana use comes from a recently published study by a Harvard
researcher showing that use of any illicit drug, but especially marijuana, significantly
increases the probability that an individual will abuse other drugs during the
course of a lifetime.” Note
the gratuitous and misleading use of “science-based” and “Harvard.”
Nov. 24 In Colorado, the Supreme Court rules
that the vote for the medical marijuana initiative (which passed by a 57-43 margin)
should not count because the backers didn’t get enough signatures to qualify.
Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey declares, “The purpose for a detailed signature
verification procedure is to maintain integrity in the initiative
process.” This is mullarkey of the highest order. The obvious purpose of the
signature process is to confirm that a substantial number of voters support a
given initiative, justifying the expense of putting it on the ballot. The fact
that initiative 19 passed should have made this review of the verification process
moot... In Orange County parents of three Foothill High School athletes accused
of smoking marijuana challenge the Tustin Unified School District’s
policy of reassigning students to other schools after a first “drug
offense...” In North Carolina a federal judge
Nov. 27 The FDA issues new rules requiring drug companies to test drugs on
children before marketing them, but a loophole makes it possible for pediatric
testing to occur after a new drug has been approved for adult use. FDA Deputy
Commissoner William Schultz says, “We do not expect to hold up the approval
of new drugs for adults even if the study in children was inadequate. Instead,
we’ll approve the drug for adults and then require studies in children.”
Also in November Jeannette Tossounian of Kitchener, Ontario, acknowledges to
the Kitchener-Waterloo Record that she is proprietor of a dispensary called
Marijuana Used for Medicine. She provides mj in small quantities at less than
half the retail price to people with documented need. MUM members ask doctors
to
sign a form stating “I have discussed with my patient what I am aware of in terms
of the health benefits and risks of marijuana. I would consider prescribing it
if I were legally able to do so.” Tossounian finds that “most
doctors are supportive,” although some are “totally afraid to sign the
form.” Her 50 clients include people from all walks of life suffering from
a range of ailments, including epilepsy, chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, AIDS,
hepatitis, migraine, arthritis and cancer. MUM is the fourth Canadian club to
come out of the closet. Local police are aware of the club and consider it a
very low priority bust... Add Canada items: Speedskater Catriona LeMay
Doan, Canada’s golden girl at the Nagano Olympics, lags behind Ross Rebagliati,
the snowboard champ who test positive for marijuana, in endorsements. “You see
his face everywhere,” complains LeMay Doan. “I’ve always been very vocal on being
anti-drug...” A survey of passengers arriving in Toronto from Jamaica on Air
Canada finds that 56 percent of blacks are searched compared to only 10 percent
of whites. “You stand there at the airport and watch it and it’s
incredible” says lawyer Donald McLeod. “We are not an apartheid
state.”
Nov. 29 Swiss voters defeat a measure to legalize heroin, cocaine and marijuana.
The chief of the federal health department says the government will propose
new
drug laws in ’99. Regular cannabis users in Switzerland: 500,000 out of 7 million
population. Heroin and cocaine addicts: 30-36,000.
Nov. 30: A Time magazine cover story on Ritalin reports that some 4 million
schoolchildren in the U.S. are being given this strong legal speed —with almost
a million more getting Prozac and similar antidepressants... The Associated
Press reports that the US Attorney’s office in San Francisco, responsible for
enforcing federal law from the Oregon border to Monterey Bay, pursued only
4 of the 32 environmental crime cases referred to it for prosecution in recent
years, “exasperating federal pollution cops who have watched their efforts
go nowhere.” An EPA agent complains, “I can’t tell you how many times we would
go to the prosecutors, and guess what? They’re involved in a dope trial for
the next six weeks.”
Dec. 98 The DEA’s Miami Field Division issues an internal “Survey
of the
Marijuana Situation” suggesting that active opposition to the medical-use movement
is the proper role of government. The DEA mocks California’s Compassionate Use
Act: “Since enacted, marijuana has been dispensed in
California Buyer’s Clubs for illnesses such as foot pain, headaches and pre-menstrual
syndrome.” So nu?... On current distribution patterns, the DEA is worthy
of Anslinger: “Both Colombian and Mexican marijuana is still being moved across
the soutwest border of the U.S. via land vehicles, in particular trucks. From
there it is moved into Florida via the I-10 corridor, mainly distributed into
areas by Mexican nationals and migrant workers.”
December 2: An FDA advisory panel recommends that a new arthritis
drug called Celebrex from G.D. Searle & co. (a unit of Monsanto) carry
a warning that it can cause ulcers. Celbrex was also found to cause hypertension,
swelling and kidney problems. FDA-approved painkillers cause between
10,000 and 20,000 deaths a year and more than 100,000 hospitalizations. Celebrex
is a new type of drug designed to block the Cox-2 enzyme, which is involved
in inflammation. Cox-2 inhibitors are not supposed to affect the gastrointestinal
lining... A Public Citizen survey of FDA medical officers (physicians responsible
for reviewing New Drug Applications) identifies 27 drugs approved in the past
three years that shouldn’t have been, and declining standards of safety and
efficacy... Members of Floridians for Medical Rights sue the Jacksonville Sheriff
and the Duval County Supervisor of Elections in federal court for forcing them
to leave an area near a polling place during the recent elections. No damages
are sought, but the group wants better training for
officers and poll workers... Daniel Cohn-Bendit, now a member of Parliament,
sponsors a conference on medical marijuana in Berlin, with the concrete goal
of creating a central library of all the relevant scientific literature... Kirsten
Muller-Vahl of the Medical University of Hanover describes impressive results
of a trial in which THC was given to patients with
Tourette’s syndrome and other muscle tremor... Elsewhere in the news, IDEC Pharmaceuticals
and Genentech notify doctors that their anticancer drug Rituxan has caused
at least eight deaths since it was approved by the FDA last year. Roche (which
owns 66% of Genentech and distributes the drug in Europe) has warned that Rituxan
should be administered only in hospitals, with a physician
present...
December 3 Medical marijuana becomes legal in Oregon and Washington. “It
will be imperative that the patient educate the doctor. That education
won’t be coming from Eli Lilly or Merck,” says Rick Bayer, the doctor who led
the Oregon drive. [And wasn’t provided in medical school, he might have
added.] Law enforcers moan to the media about anticipated difficulties
and the sneakiness of the citizenry. Molalla police chief Rob Elkins worries
that if officers confiscate marijuana and then have to return it to patients,
they’ll
be violating federal laws against drug trafficking! Multnomah County DA
Michael Schrunk, who prosecuted about 900 felony marijuana cases in ’97, says
that only 19 of them involved medical-use defenses (although why anyone would
raise an impermissible defense is unclear). He predicts the number will rise
as perfectly healthy folks claim to be gaining medical benefits from the devil
weed...The Oregon Medical Association advises its members not to write recommendations
for patients seeking to use marijuana -despite the passage of
the AMR initiative. “At this point it would be mistake for physicians to
participate in an activity which may or may not be the subject of conflict
between state and federal law, much less a complicated scenario currently
lacking an administrative rule infrastructure. Physicians who are willing
to participate in the medical marijuana process would be well advised to wait
until the Health Division makes its rules and the federal government takes an
official position on the act itself.” In Seattle, Jo Anna McKee say
she’s gotten at least 100 calls since the election from people “who have been
sick for a while but were afraid of getting in trouble,” wondering how to obtain
marijuana for medical use. Plans are afoot to set up “new branches, so
to speak” of the Green Cross Patient Co-op, which had been providing medical
marijuana to some 400 patients prior to the election with the tacit assent of
local law enforcement.
Also 12/3 The Marijuana Farmers of St. Vincent, an island nation
in the Caribbean (population 110,000) , send Bill Clinton a letter demanding
compensation if the U.S. destroys their crop. Six U.S. Marine Corps helicopters
are scheduled to ferry more than 120 troops from the Caribbean Regional Security
Service and St. Vincent police force to uproot and burn marijuana plants on “remote
northern plots.” Similar operations in recent years have destroyed milions
of plants in Trinidad, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Dominica and Antigua. “We
have 8,000 people whose livelihood depends on marijuana” said organizer Junior
Cottle. Some 60 percent of the population worked in the banana industry before
trade negotiators reduced St. Vincent’s European export quota. Marine Corps
Lt. Col Jeff Douglas says that the U.S. will only provide transportation and
will train troops to avoid booby traps...
Also 12/3 Municipal Court Judge Maral Adjikian orders the LAPD to return 35
plants taken from Sister Somayah, a member of the West Hollywood Club —the
first time plants have been ordered returned in LA County.
Also 12/3 The Arizona Daily Star reports that thieves made off with about 500
pounds of marijuana from a 7-ton load that was supposed to be burned at a south
Tucson incinerator on Nov. 17. The load was made up of pot seized by Customs
officials in West Texas and New Mexico. Ten customs employees involved
in the incineration have been placed on paid leave. Taxpayers should be relieved
to note that the Customs Service has convened a narcotics destruction task
force.
Dec. 4 Gerald Uelmen, representing Peter Baez, argues that San
Jose police went beyond the scope of their search warrants when they seized
all 265 client files from the Santa Clara County Medical Cannabis Center in
March. Baez faces seven felony counts in connection with his operation of the
club, which
opened in April ’97 and closed May 8. The DA argued that the police were empowered
to seize the files by a San Jose ordinance governing the club... The Justice
Department asks US District Judge Richard Roberts to dismiss the ACLU suit that
would force the District of Columbia to reveal the vote count on
Initiative 59. Here we have an issue on which Clinton and Bob Barr agree...Also
12/4 The FDA acknowledges that 33 deaths due to liver failure have been
caused by Rezulin, a diabetes drug launched in March 1997 by Warner-Lambert
Co. after “fast track” approval by the FDA. The drug was withdrawn from the market
in Britain a year ago. Nine drugs other than Rezulin reduce blood sugar in patients
with adult-onset diabetes. Liver injuries caused by Rezulin have occured in about
2 percent of all patients according to FDA records; most heal on their own. A
veteran FDA medical officer assigned to evaluate Rezulin had recommended rejecting
it initially but was removed from his
position on the advisory committee.
350,000 undergraduates are now majoring in “criminal justice” at U.S.
colleges. The field has become “a cash cow for college
administrators.”
Dec. 5 Fox Butterfield of The New York Times reports that 350,000
undergraduates are now majoring in “criminal justice” at U.S. colleges. The
field has become “a cash cow for college administrators.” Most of the
students are “from working class backgrounds and are the first members
of their families to go to college. The appeal is jobs as police officers,
prison guards, probation officers, private security company employees
or FBI agents.”
The dean of the College of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University
in
Texas observed that “the largest single impact on criminal-justice enrollment
in the past 10 years was ‘Silence of the Lambs.’” Butterfield interviewed a student
who’s “an administrator for an investment bank by day but wants to become a profiler
for the FBI. Her inspiration comes from watching the NBC show ‘Profiler,’ which
is about a beautiful blond FBI agent who solves gruesome murders through psychological
analysis of demented killers’ minds.” A
teacher commented, “Now they all want to be FBI profilers. They see it on TV;
it’s very glamorized.”
Dec. 7 High Times and John Gettman ask the DEA to delay the rescheduling
of Marinol, subject to public hearings. High Times and Gettman are co-petitioners
in another action to reschedule marijuana and THC, as well as Marinol (which
is synthetic THC made by Unimed Pharmaceuticals). They argue that rescheduling
Marinol is inconsistent with DEA policy statements that trace amounts of THC
in industrial hemp are such a danger to public health as to justify a ban on
hemp cultivation in the U.S. (Sales of Marinol increased shaply in the
first nine months of ’98, according to Unimed.)
Also 12/7 The Second District court of Appeals (Division 6) issues
an order staying all lower court proceedings until it reviews J. David Nick’s
appeal of the order under which the Thousand Oaks Cannabis Club was closed
back
in February. “The judge [who issued the original order] ruled that only completely
incapacitated patients can have caregivers and that supplying a medical service
or drug on a schedule to a patient is not ‘consistently assuming responsibility
for the health and safety of that person,” says Nick.... Barry McCaffrey tells
the Council of State Governments that the US is winning the war on drugs, but
victory is being jeopardized by the medical marijuana movement. His latest sound
bite: “Pain management is not best done
with a joint and two vodkas.”
Dec. 8 How crazy can you get? The Michigan Court of Appeals refuses to block
extradition and Alfred Odell Martin is transported back to Martinsville, Virginia,
where 25 years ago, he was jailed for selling $10 worth of marijuana. Martin,
who’d been sentenced to 10 years in prison with nine years suspended, fled
to Michigan where he married, raised three children, and worked for a mortgage
company. “Michigan may know him as the responsible businessman with a good
record, but Martinsville knows him as a drug dealer,” says prosecutor Joan
Ziglar... Roche Diagnostics has won Food and Drug Administration clearance
to begin marketing ONTRAK TESTCUP-er. The drug testing device is specifically
designed to assess the drug use status of emergency room patients. ONTRAK TESTCUP-er
is capable of simultaneous detection of cocaine, morphine, amphetamines, barbiturates
and benzodiazopenes, with results in less than five
minutes.
Dec. 10 A Lake County jury, after a nine-day trial, finds Charles Eddie Lepp
of
Hidden Valley not guilty. Lepp is a 46-year old Vietnam vet who has
had bypass surgery and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic back
pain, skin cancer, degenerative arthritis, and manic depression. He was arrested
in August, 1997, with 131 plants growing in his yard. He said he and his wife
Linda had a verbal approval from a doctor in Salinas, NAME Wahl to use mj for
pain relief. Linda has thyroid cancer. She spent the first 11 years of her life
in a brace and is clinically depressed. Their co-defendant and friend Matt Bronsert
has been in constant pain since an on-the-job injury. Lepp was growing for all
three. Deputy District Attorney Fred Raper argued that the quantity of mj Lepp
was growing suggested that he intended to sell some. Lepp said the surplus was
for donation to the SF Buyers Club. Raper also challenged the
validity of Lepp’s recommendation. Dr. Wahl denied having recommended mj; The
Lepps testifed that he did and the jurors believed them. Lepp says the case put
him $15,000 in debt. John Entwistle, Jr., says the jury’s verdict “will
be viewed as the green checkered flag to produce, produce, produce!” Lepp says, “I
did everything I could to obey the law. I got a doctor’s
approval. I’ve always been honest with my doctors. I don’t want doctors prescribing
conflicting medicines, so I’ve always told them all the medicines I do, including
marijuana... Because of all the stink, my doctor flip-flopped and claimed he
never gave me a recommendation.What he’d said was, ‘If you believe marijuana
helps you, go ahead and smoke it. I’ll testify in court and
support you.’ I took that as a recommendation. When asked if he had told me this
he said ‘It’s possible.’ The jury believed me. The reason they
couldn’t convict me was that they looked at me and saw themselves, their mother,
their brother, their sister. I told them, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.
I’m like you.’ But if I were black or gay, they might’ve tried to backdoor me.
But I’m a white middle class goddamn war hero, military intelligence. I have
letters of support from the V.A., with combat duty in Vietnam in 1972. 90% of
what’s wrong with me can be traced to my service years.
“I need marijuana. When I take pain pills -I’ve have to take hundreds a month-
it tears me up. I get bad when I drink alcohol. On weed, I’ve never met anyone
who doesn’t like me... The jury was made up of 10 men and two women. The DA used
up all 20 peremptories getting rid of 215 supporters. Again and again, jurors
said the same kind of thngs, like ‘I support medical use... I voted for 215...
You’ll have to disqualify me.’”
The Lepps’s co-defendant Matt Bronsert pled guilty TO WHAT CHARGE and got 120
days’ jail time and three years’ probation. 707 994-7676
Dec. 11 Hawaii Gov. Ben Cayetano says he will push for a law to legalize the
use
of marijuana for medical purposes. “We need to be at the forefont of
treatment,” says Cayetano.
Dec. 13 Texas Ranger Sgt. David Duncan charges that his investigation
of the killing of teenage goatherd Esequiel Hernandez, Jr. by Marines on drug
interdiction patrol has been obstructed by the military. Duncan was not given
timely access to the witnesses; subpoenas were ignored and
documents concealed. This killing of a US citizen occurred in May ’97 in
Redford, Texas. The Marine Corps has agreed-—without admitting wrongdoing, of
course— to pay $1.9 million to the Hernandez family. Also Dec. 13, the
Navy’s Criminal Investigative Service acknowledges that 20 marines and sailors
from the San Diego area have been investigated for drug smuggling in ’98. Pentagon
officals tell the LA Times they don’t know how many servicemen have been court-martialed
for smuggling, or how many are currently under investigation. They call the drug
busts “isolated incidents” as the cancer
metastasizes.
Dec. 14 The Virginia House of Delegates passes a resolution asking federal
officials to let the state’s universities experiment with cultivation of hemp
for commercial use. The sponsor, Delegate Mitchell Van Yahres, suggests that
hemp would be a good option for farmers adversely affected by the national
tobacco settlement. The General Assembly will consider the measure at its next
session.
Dec. 17 A parliamentary health committee in New Zealand, after an eight-month
study, concludes “the negative mental health impact of cannabis appears to
have been oversated, particularly in relation to occasional adult users of
the drug...” European researchers report in The New England Journal of
Medicine that at least half the drugs donated to wartorn Bosnia-Herzegovinia
were unusable —outdated supplies dumped by their manufacturers, who reaped
millions of dollars in tax breaks savings on disposal
costs. “17,000 metric tons of inappropriate drugs may save donors $25.5
million,” according to the report. Studies of “aid” sent to people in need after
earthquakes and famine in Africa, Mexico and the former Soviet Union show the
same pattern of dumping for profit by drug companies.
Also Dec. 17, Concluding that the negative mental-health effects of cannabis
have been exaggerated, and that the prohibition has been ineffective, and that “the
police are open-minded on the issue of decriminalization,” New
Zealand’s parliamentary health select committee calls for reviewing the legal
status of cannabis.
Dec. 18 Sacramento Police Detective NAME MacKannin testifies that, regardless
of paperwork demonstrating medical status, all patients caught with medical
cannabis will be arrested and prosecuted, all immature medical cannabis will
be killed, and all medical cannabis gardens will be destroyed. MacKannin, who
led the raid on Bob Ames’s residence, testified that he believed the Sacramento
patient/activist “was growing it for himself and to give it away to others
for free. “ Although the judge noted that this case doesn’t include most of
the items ordinarily found in sales cases -and that giving away cannabis to
qualified patients would not be illegal under California state law- Ames
was ordered to stand trial next year on two felony charges, cultivation, and
posession with intent to distribute medical cannabis.
Dec. 18 The prosecution of Lori Converse and her caregiver, William McConnell,
is delayed so that the Sonoma County Medical Association’s peer review committee
can validate her need for medical marijuana. Converse, 33,
suffers from degenerative disc disease stemming from two car crashes. She
and McConnell were arrested Sept. 17 for cultivation. “I was blown away that
they threw me in jail and treated me so brutally in the first place,” commented
Converse, who had two letters from doctors authorizing mj use. “I figured being
broken and all that they’d take that into
consideration.”
The review panel had hoped to avoid getting involved in ongoing cases to prevent
the possibility that its members could be subpoenaed. But District Attorney
Mike
Mullins expressed hope the review panel would weigh in, adding, “There is reason
to believe she has a serious illness within the meaning of the
statute.” Converse, who takes legally prescribed morphine for her pain,
was forced to go without it for six days while in jail.
Also 12/18 Judge Richard Roberts hears arguments on the ACLU/Washington,
D.C suit to count the Initiative 59 votes. The Clinton Justice Department supports
Bob Barr’s amendment, arguing that Congress has the legal authority to not
certify legislation in the District; but in typical “I didn’t
inhale” fashion, they raise no objection to the vote count being released! “That’s
basically turning an election into a public opinion poll,” observes Wayne Turner,
the AIDS activist who organized the Initiative 59
campaign. “This is about the right of the people of the District of Columbia
to have their votes counted and to have them count.” He sums up the situation
and the year: “This is about democracy held hostage.” The voided vote is
a first in U.S. history.
Dec. 21 Ed Learn, Will Larson and Robert Bonencamp -patients whose
plants were uprooted from a Guerneville garden in August by Sonoma
county sheriffs-
file a petition for the return of their plants. “We know this will be a symboolic
victory, because the plants are long dead,” comments Dennis Peron, “but when
the judge orders the medical marijuana returned, a lot of patients will know
that Prop 215 is alive and well in Sonoma County.”
Dec. 23 Federal charges have been dropped against Marin Alliance for
Medical Marijuana. ASK PANZER OR RAICH... San Jose police
sgt. Tim Kuchac, who had stated in his affidavit that he was part of the team
that served the first warrant on the SJ club and noticed a computer that could
have
contained business records, admits under questioning from Peter Baez’s lawyers
that he had not been to the center before signing the affidavit. “I have very
few instances in my life as a lawyer where I had a police officer admit on the
stand to perjury,” comments Gerald Uelmen... Also 12/23The state auditor reports
that wells and reservoirs in California are now infiltrated with carcinogenic
MTBE from gasoline (to the point of being undrinkable in Tahoe, Santa Monica
and other water districts) because state officials chose to ignore the
problem between 1990, when they first became aware of it, and 1997. The auditor
finds “deficiences at every step of the regulatory process, from issuing permits...
to enforcing laws designed to protect us.” In other words, while the Attorney
General was showing zero tolerance for marijuana users, he showed zero interest
in the oil companies’ poisoning our water. Good riddance to Dan Lungren
-and may we not kid ourselves in the days to come
about the Democrats’ commitment to the corporados...
Dec. 18 “In recent weeks, squads of lobbyists from PhRMA
[the drug industry’s lobby], Merck, Warner-Lambert, Bristol Myers Squibb and
others have descended on Congress,” according to The Wall St. Journal, to oppose
a bill, introduced by Democrat Tom Allen of Maine, that would give senior citizens
the same discount on prescription drugs that HMOs and the government now get.
Although the measure wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything, drug lobbyists contend
it would “ultimately harm the elderly by halting the development of promising
drugs that could aid against the ravages of old age.”
The Journal reports, “With profit surging, drug companies had the financial
wherewithal to spend more on lobbying in 1997 that any other industry. PhRma
[the industry lobby] spent more than $6 million, while Merck dispensed $5.1
million for a squad of five in-house lobbyists, among other expenses. Eli Lilly,
Bristol-Myers Squibb and Glaxo Wellcome each spent around $3.8 million.”
A PhRMa spokesman told the Journal, “This is part of the democratic process.
We lobby, and the other side lobbies.”
12/22 A unit of RJR Nabisco pleads guilty and will pay a $15 million fine for
its role in the smuggling of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cigarettes
into Canada. The goal was to evade U.S. and Canadian taxes. Reynolds
and other companies started shipping large amounts of Canadian brands, like
Players, to the northern U.S., even though few Americans smoke them. Distributors
would move them into Canada through the St. Regis Mohawk/Awkesasne Indian Reservation
-just like “drug” smugglers from Mexico use Camp Pendleton to enter the U.S.
Dec. 24 Basketball star Corie Blount, home in Columbus, Ohio, for Christmas,
is pulled over by the highway patrol because his car windows are too dark.
A drug-sniffing dog finds a briefcase with $19,000 in cash, which is confiscated
and handed over to the DEA. Blount says he had just sold a car -but he will
have to prove it in court before he can get his money back. In the Columbus
Dispatch
columnist Steve Stephens writes, “David Stern must wish he had the kind of negotiating
power wielded by the State Highway Patrol... If the cops decide they want a particular
pile of money, they need only claim that it would probably have been used to
buy drugs. To get the money back, the (former) owner of the cash must take the
cops to court to prove otherwise... Many innocent citizens, less able to afford
the loss and the high-priced attorneys needed for a court fight, have suffered
from the same seizure laws. How many basic rights will be seized before citizens
demand their return?”
Also 12/24 Rolling Stone publishes a major piece on medical marijuana
by
William Greider that describes Bill Zimmerman —his primary source— as “the national
head of the movement.” Greider proclaims, “If this year’s outcome turns
out to be an important turning point, one explanation may be that the 1998 referendum
propositions were different [than Prop 215]. They were designed to be law-enforcement
friendly, and they included new regulatory rules that avoid much of the legal
ambiguity and conflict that followed California’s
decriminalization vote in 1996.”
December 25 Another Christmas in jail for thousands whose only crime
was possession of prohibited drugs. Will Foster does not receive his hoped-for
freedom, despite unanimous approval from the state’s parole board to release
him and several prison supervisors’ taking the unusual step of urging Gov.
Frank Keating to issue a pardon...Some 43,000 people are in California prisons
for drug offenses, not counting those in county jails or federal prison. Of
these, 17, 747 are in for possession. “While California now has five
times as many drug prisoners as in 1986,” notes Dale Gieringer, “this has had
no evident effect on illegal drug use...” In New York state a bipartisan
coalition backed by the Lindesmith Center launches an ad campaign opposing
the long mandatory minimum sentences instituted in 1973 by Nelson
Rockefeller...
In a downcast Christmas column, Ann Landers observes “the war on drugs has
turned out to be a colossal failure.” The line will be censored in the Tampa
Tribune and some of her other outlets.
Dec. 26 Police in San Francisco —claiming they’d been summoned by a silent
emergency alarm— trash the apartment of Richard Evans, director of the recently
opened San Francisco Patients and Caregivers Health Center on Mission Street,
and arrest him on cultivation and pornography charges (based on his possession
of two books by photographer Jock Sturges). Evans, who has applied for a permit
to operate his club, says he was growing strictly for medical use —his own
and his club members’. He calls the porno charge an attempt by “rogue agents” to
slander him. District Attorney Hallinan will promptly dismiss all the charges
against Evans. But the police will re-arrest him and
hold him for five days.
Dec. 28 Attorney General Elect Bill Lockyer issues a list of priorities
that includes making Prop 215 work. He calls his predecessor “overly
zealous in continuing to oppose [Prop 215] even after the people had adopted
it.” In Washington state Lieutenant Governor Brad Owen pays a $7,000
fine for turning his office into a mini-campaign headquarters opposing Initiative
685 (a 1997 medical mj initiative that lost at the pools).
Dec. 29 Russian President Boris Yeltsin instructs the government to set up
a special fund for waging a war on illegal drug trafficking... Rastafarians
from St. Vincent and the Grenadines condemn the eradication effort by the US
the DEA and Marine Corps. The 10 day exercise netted more than a million plants
on 302
plots. “The task force also burned 148 huts,” according to the Miami
Herald... Industrial hemp is being grown in fields around Chernobyl in
an attempt to remove radioactive pollutants from the soil. Certain plants break
down or degrade organic pollutants and stabilize metal contaminants by acting
as
filters or traps. “Hemp is proving to be one of the best phyto-remediative
plants we have been able to find,” says Slavik Dushenkov of
Phytotech. [Why don’t we try it at Hunter’s Point and the Presidio?]...
Also 12/29 In Tacoma, Washington, a blind, semi-paralyzed man with AIDS
is arrested for cultivation of three plants and jailed for two days. Police
say the newly-passed medical marijuana initiative does not apply because Kelly
Grubbs did not have a letter of recommendation. Dr. Rob Killian protests that
such
letters are kept in doctors’ files, not issued to patients, lest they be construed
by the feds as prescriptions. The Seattle Times editorializes that
Killian “flunked in this first test case of the law.” Will law enforcement in
Washington use Lungren’s tactics to oppose implementation?
Dec. 31 At the glasshouse complex operated by GW Pharmaceuticals in Southeast
England, staffers are harvesting 5,000 eight-feet-tall cannabis plants —10
separate strains with varying cannabinoid ratios, provided by HortaPharm, which
will be processed into “a treacly liquid” for use in inhalers. The Medical
Research Council is drafting guidelines under which tests on patients will
be conducted in the new year by GW and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. The
first trial, by Dr. Anita Holdcroft of Hammersmith Hospital, London, will involve
patients in post-operative pain. A second, by Dr. John Zajicek of Derriford
Hospital, Plymouth, will test whether MS patients get relief from spasms. One
group of about 100 patients will be given the conventional treatment for controlling
muscle spasms. A second group will receive THC. A clinical trial overseen
by Guy will commence in spring 1999 and will involve some 2,000 patients over
the course of two years. “We will be using whole plant extracts for delivery
by inhalation since this is far more precise and controllable than the oral
route,” says Guy. “The first area of study in patients will concern the relief
of nerve damage pain including sufferers of multiple sclerosis... By the end
of 1999 we intend to be working with pharmaceutical grade extracts from cloned
plants rather than growing from seed. We will then be growing and harvesting
on a regular basis.” By then he expects to be supplying other
researchers —Tod Mikuriya is among the first in line— who want to test the safety
and efficacy of Guy’s plant extracts.
1999
1999: A Stall in the Name of Science
January 1 In San Diego, Steve McWilliams opens Shelter From the Storm, a new
club, out of an apartment behind the Hemp Store in Hillcrest. CHECK AND
EXPAND
Jan. 2 In Tacoma, Washington, Tracie Morgan, 61, and her
son Kelly Grubbs, 35, are arrested for the cultivation of three plants in their
home. Grubbs has AIDS, is blind, and is semiparalyzed from a stroke. The police
say that the mother and son lacked documentation that the marijuana was for
medical use.
“I have long believed that the laws regarding marijuana are too harsh.
Those who keep pot for their own personal use should not be treated
as
criminals. I’m with you...” —Ann Landers
January 5 Ann Landers runs a letter from a mom whose son
had been arrested for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.
A lawyer had told the mom the police usually tack on intent-to-distribute
to stiffen the
charges. Ann says, “I have long believed that the laws regarding marijuana are
too harsh. Those who keep pot for their own personal use should not be treated
as criminals. I’m with you...”
The FDA approves a meat-flavored pill called Clomicalm —sold by Novartis, the
makers of Ritalin— for the treatment of separation anxiety in dogs...
A study by Amsterdam University and the Central Bureau of Statistics determines
that drug use among the Dutch is about half as common as the Dutch government
had assumed. Some 15.6 percent of Dutch people aged 12 and over have tried
cannabis, compared to 32.9 percent of Americans. Some 2.5 percent of
the
Dutch have used cannabis in the last month —compared to 5.1 percent of Amercians,
according to government stats from both countries. “A repressive drugs policy,
as implemented in the U.S., does not necessarily reduce drugs
use,” the authors conclude. “Availability is not a determining factor for the
use of drugs in a country.”
Jan. 6 A French government report notes that about 60,000 deaths in 1997 were
attributed to cigaret smoking, 20,000 to alcohol —and 228 to heroin. Some 2
million Frenchies are said to smoke marijuana regularly.
Jan. 7 The National Basketball Association strike is settled with the
players capitulating on their share of the profits (down from 57 to 52 percent)
and on marijuana testing. They agree to be tested every year at the start
of training camp —but not randomly during the course of the season.
Jan. 9 Yahoo! -the giant Internet search service- sics its lawyers
on Yahooka!, a small new website that seeks “to spread the truth about marijuana,
tell of its medical uses, and speak of the principles of individual rights
and freedom.”
Jan. 11 The office of the Drug Czar gives Ogilvy & Mather $129 million
to handle the purchase of anti-drug ads in the media. Our tax dollars at work...
An article in the Journal of the US Public Health Service by Ernest Drucker,
a
professor of epidemiology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, concludes, “From
a public health point of view, drug prohibition is a disaster. Drug related deaths
and diseases have increased sharply.” Drucker notes that enforcement activities
constitute 67% of the $16 billion federal drug budget and more than $20 billion
per year in state and local enforcement expenditures, compared with $7.6 billion
for treatment, prevention and research. While black people are no more
likely to use illegal drugs than whites, they are 20 times more likely to be
incarcerated than whites and 3.5 times more likely to
die of overdoses.
Also 1/11 U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Narcotics, Rand Beers, calls
for the eradication of poppy-growing in Pakistan. He notes that the military
will
have to destroy crops: “There is no way we can give farmers enough money to keep
them from growing if the government does not enforce (eradication).”
Also 1/11 in San Francisco, Richard Evans is arrested again and held for five
days until he can make bail (set at $25,000). He faces charges of growing and
selling marijuana.
Jan. 12 The city of Oakland files an amicus brief with the
9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of the Oakland club. Written by city
attorney Linda LeCraw and former FDA general counsel Peter Hutt (who helped
draft the Controlled Substances Act), it argues that the federal law banning
marijuana is a “legislated truth” with no rational basis —comparable to laws
denying the vote to women and African Americans. Also, in approving Prop
215, California voters “deemed the medical use of cannabis to be a fundamental
liberty interest” protected by the 9th and 10th Amendments.
“Co-Payments Rise for Prescriptions,” reports the Wall St. Journal. “Many consumers
in managed-care plans are being asked to come up with $25 or more for a prescription
that a year or two may have cost them just $5 to $10.” The
excuse? “A surge in development of dozens of expensive drugs that are overwhelming
HMOs’ prescription-drug budgets...”
The annual “Physician Compensation and Production Survey” of the Medical Group
Management Association reveals that male doctors make more than women in almost
all specialties —and the gap is widening. One factor is that women doctors
tend to spend more time with their patients.
Jan. 13 Aetna agrees to buy Prudential Health Care; six giant companies
now dominate the health insurance business. The AMA and several state medical
societies protest. Doctors can expect to be paid less per patient, i.e., patients
will get less time per visit (the average is now 11 minutes) and can expect
a narrower choice of doctors and shorter hospital stays...
The Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp, based in Portland,
is pushing the Cannabis Tax Act, which it hopes to place on the ballot in Oregon
and several other states in 2000.
In Ireland, where drug testing of the workforce has been introduced by multinationals,
some 5% are testing positive —most of them for cannabis, according to a report
in the Irish Independent.
The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a Colorado law requiring petition circulators
to be registered Colorado voters. Bill Zimmerman says that had AMR been able
to hire out-of-state crews to gather signatures in ’98, medical marijuana initiatives
would have made the ballot in Maine and Colorado.
Jan. 14 Charges against Buzzy Linhart are dismissed by a Berkeley DA,
setting up a “Brown motion” for return of the confiscated marijuana and a civil
suit against the Berkeley police... Researchers at Duke Univesity report
in Science that Ritalin works not by means of the neurotransmitter dopamine
but by boosting production of serotonin. In other words, they’d been completely
wrong all this time! Did you hear any mea culpas?
Health Canada (the Canadian FDA) bans the use of Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone
to boost milk production. Veterinarians cite a 25% higher risk of udder infection,
an 18% rise in infertility and a 50% rise in lameness among animals injected
with the hormone.Tests in lab rats show possible invasion of the hormone into
the prostate. During the review of BGH, six scientists alleged that they were
pressured into approving it, and one told a Senate committee that Monsanto
had offered research money as a bribe. The US FDA reiterates that BGH “is safe
and effective when used as labeled.” Monsanto estimates that 30% of US
dairy cows are getting the drug, which was first marketed in ’94 (although
dairies for decades had been producing more milk than the nation could
consume).
Jan. 15 Add voices of sanity: Colorado Senate Bill 95, introduced by Dorothy
Rupert (D-Boulder) would put a three-year moratorium on prison construction
and establish a task force to review criminal sentencing policies in the state...
The FDA, citing liver-failure deaths caused by Rezulin, directs its experts
to
reassess the drug’s safety. Rezulin has been taken by more than 1 million people
who have adult-onset diabetes since its introduction by Warner-Lambert two years
ago —generating $1 billion in sales.
Jan. 16 Barry McCaffrey tells the Associated Press, “More eighth graders
are using heroin in today’s America than 12th graders.” The man
seems to have suffered minimal brain damage. He also announces that the White
House will seek to have duplicate medals awarded to swimmers and runners who
lost to East Germans in the 1972, ’76 and ’80 Olympics. “We need to look at
the notion of supplemental medals when it can be proved in the courts where
medals were lost to chemically engineered competition,” says the drug czar.
The International Olympic Committee has been unwilling to rewrite the record
books, but McCaffrey, noting that two-thirds of their revenue comes from US
television networks and corporate sponsors, says, “Our voice should be listened
to.”
Also 1/16 A “haze of uncertainty” hangs over the status of medical
marijuana in Oregon, according to the Grants Pass Daily Courier. “The
law
doesn’t allow you to buy it or for it to be sold to you,” states Peter
Cogswell of the Oregon Dept. of Justice. A spokesman for Oregonians for
Medical Rights advises the would-be medical mj user to get a doctor’s recommendation
and bring it to the boss. “I think in most cases employers will be compassionate
for their employees,” says Geoff Sugarman of
OMR. And what if they’re not, Geoff? Will Soros pay the rent?
Jan. 18 Gen. Charles Wilhelm, top American military commander for
Latin
America, meets with Columbia’s defense minister on creating a 1,000-member “counternarcotics
battalion... to provide police with army protection during anti-narcotics operations
in the rebel-dominated areas.”
Jan. 18-19 At a special hearing on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s
proposed guidelines for marijuana eradication efforts in Northern California,
Humboldt county residents describe low-flying helicopters and armed personnel
terrifying wildlife and livestock, disrupting work and school, and threatening
endangered bird species The hearings were organized by the Civil Liberties
Monitoring Project and The Rights Organization on behalf of plaintiffs in a
federal suit against the government’s 1990 Operation Greensweep. As part of
a settlement, U.S. district judge Fern Smith ordered that the BLM prepare guidelines
to address the adverse environmental and human impacts of anti-marijuana
operations.
The hearings are presided over by retired California appeals court judge William
Newsom (a liberal, father of SF Supervisor Gavin Newsom). Linda Derkson presents
evidence that flights beneath 2,000 feet could cause serious harm by disrupting
migration patterns and inducing desertion of nests. Rare bird breeder
Fred Bauer testifies that he suffered $40,000 in losses from broken
eggs, abandoned nests and breeding deaths caused by CAMP helicopters. Witnesses
testify that helicopters routinely came down to tree-top level, endangering
nesting birds by using their prop-wash to blow down foliage in search of marijuana.
Horse trainer Susan Carmada tells how helicopters panicked horses, startled riders,
and once maliciously chased a colt and its mother
around the field. Other animal breeders complain of harm to rabbits, emus,
and buffalo. Vietnam vets testify how the noise of helicopters exacerbated
post-traumatic stress. Schoolteacher Kim Kemp testifies that helicopters had
landed on her schoolgrounds unannounced and once caused so much noise as to force
her to close her school. Bernadette Webster describes how her daughter
was upset after encountering a gun-toting Operation Greensweep guardsman in camouflage
gear, who refused to identify himself. Gary Holder, a former deputy sheriff and
CAMP officer, says “Every officer that’s been in a helicopter involved
in the CAMP program, if they were going to tell you the truth, would say ‘Yes,
we have flown under 500 feet, we got as close as we could to the treetops to
hover, we have looked into people’s
windows.’ Holder warns that enforceability of guidelines would be a major
problem, since CAMP personnel are brought in from out of county and trained to
believe that “everybody out there is a bad guy.” Former CAMP commander Gene Womack
complains that confiscated marijuana was stored in a pit just 100 yards from
the dormitory of the Eel River Conservation Camp correctional facility,
creating an attractive nuisance for prisoners, many of whom ended up being
charged with marijuana offenses at considerable state expense. The BLM
declines to send a representative to the hearings, claiming concern about their
physical security in a hostile community.
Jan. 19 In South Lake Tahoe, Steve Kubby, a cancer
patient and medical marijuana activist who played a key role in the
Prop 215 campaign, is arrested with his wife Michelle for cultivation
and the usual bogus related
charges, including conspiracy. Kubby, 52, has adrenal cancer (in miraculous
emission) and high blood pressure. As the Libertarian candidate for governor,
he received HOW MANY votes in 1998. Bail of $100,000 is offered by ACME
bail bonds of Culver City, a firm that considers medical mj patients a
good risk before attorney Dale Wood gets the Kubbys out on o.r.
Kubby’s statement: “An anonymous letter with vague accusations (information
called ‘weak and non-specific’ by Don Atkinson of the El Dorado County
Sheriff’s Department) was the ‘probable cause’ under which four different law
enforcement agencies monitored our every move for the past six months. All
evidence being used against Michele and me comes from the privacy of our own
home and was obtained by spying through our windows, examining our trash, and
monitoring our Internet communications. Something around half of the
documentation provided by government offficials to our attorneys were political
documents surrounding my candidacy for governor last year and the medical marijuana
movement. Every aspect of our garden documented and in compliance with the
Compassionate Use Act Of 1996 that the voters in this state approved overwhelmingly.
Absolutely no sales ever took place. Michele and I broke no laws and should
have been protected under the law. Instead, we are witness to how the legal
rights of seriously ill people are routinely violated. Please help us end this
insanity once and for all.”
Also 1/19 The mayor of Portland, Vera Katz, unveils the “Campus Crime
Stopper program.” Students will be paid up to $1,000 to snitch on classmates
who carry weapons, drink alcohol or use drugs around school... Reuters reports
that Jamaican police seized “a record amount of narcotics and made a record
number of drug-related arrests (7,352) in ’98... Jamaica’s performance in the
area of drug control will come under close scrutiny by the US at the beginning
of March. The White House will recommend to Congress whether the island should
be among those countries which merit being recertified for their record of
cooperation in the international drug fight. Decertification would mean the
withdrawal of most forms of direct aid from the US and the loss of US support
for assistance from multilateral institutions including the IMF and the World
Bank.”
Jan. 20: Pfizer reports that sales of Viagra in Europe helped
push
fourth-quarter net income up 14% —but users don’t come back for more. “Viagra
sales are flat in the US and demand for the product has been met,” the Wall St.
Journal reports. “The question remains whether demand in Europe
already has ended.” Fortunately for Pfizer, Zoloft had sales gains of $489
million —up 24% from a year ago.
Also 1/20 The Israeli Health Ministry establishes a committee to provide doctors
with guidelines for prescribing marijuana.
Jan. 21 Journalist Pete Brady —who had criticized Butte County
police in a High Times article— is arrested in Chico for possession of slightly
more than an ounce of dried mj, some food containing marijuana, and seven small
cacti alleged to be peyote. Brady is a medical marijuana user with a bona fide
prescription. He had been working on a book with Steve Kubby, and infers from
his interrogation that his license plates had been traced after a visit to
Kubby, and that the cops are sniffing for a “conspiracy.”
Also 1/21 three-judge Court of Appeal panel unanimously rejects Serge
Rigo’s attempt to use Prop 215 to overturn a cultivation conviction. Rigo, who
was using mj as a treatment for chronic stomach problems, was arrested on election
day, 1996 —the day Prop 215 passed. But he didn’t get a doctor’s approval until
three months after his arrest. And the doctor was Tod Mikuriya.
Rep. Cynthia Thielen introduces a bill whereby the Hawaiian legislature would
allocate $100,000 for a study by the University of Hawaii at Hilo to study
the feasibility and desirability of industrial hemp production. Diversified
agriculture has surpassed sugar and pineapple (combined) in value since 1992,
although much more acreage is devoted to the corporate crops... In North Dakota,
Republican legislator Dave Monson introduces a bill to eliminate hemp from
the
list of “prohibited noxious weed seeds.”
Jan. 22 The Chicago Tribune reports that local schools are now stashing
Ritalin in locked safes, following numerous rip-offs by students. The
drug is
selling for $5 to $15 a pill, according to police. “Ritalin abuse,” as defined
by NIDA, rose by 1,400 percent between 1994 and ’97. More than 4 million U.S.
schoolchildren are given the drug daily to treat “hyperactivity.” An estimated
10 percent of high school seniors now abuse
it... About 10 percent of the coral worldwide has died, according to researchers
at the AAAS meeting in Anaheim. Previously unknown bacteria and viruses are killing
marine life at coral sites off Florida, and there is a 7,000
square mile “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico.
Jan. 24 “Drug companies are gearing up to fight any plan for the Government
to provide prescription drugs as a basic benefit in the traditional
Medicare
program,” reports the NY Times. Eighty percent of Medicare beneficiaries
regularly use prescription drugs for which they pay out-of-pocket. The Democrats
propose using some of the projected surplus to help pick up the tab. The drug
companies “fear it would lead to Federal regulation of drug prices.” Meanwhile
co-payments are skyrocketing as private insurers try to maximize their
profits. Seniors typically pay twice as much as HMOs and other “favored
customers.”
Jan. 25 Eli Lilly buys off three drug companies that had planned to
market generic versions of Prozac in 2001. Shares of Lilly stock soar
$6. “We plan to
capitalize on our expertise with depression,” crows Lilly CEO Sidney Taurel...
The Virginia House of Representatives passes an industrial hemp resolution
by a 76 to 23 vote; now it goes to the Senate.
Jan. 26 It was a great fourth quarter of ’98 for the pharmaceutical
industry. Merck, the world’s largest drug company, led in sales growth
at 21 percent. Schering-Plough led profit growth with 22 percent (powered
by strong sales of Claritin)... Barry McCaffrey pledges $1 million
to promote drug testing
of Olympic athletes. The drug czar’s 10-page policy paper calls for athletes
to be available for testing 365 days a year, every year —not just during Olympic
years.
Jan. 27 Jane’s Defense Weekly quotes US Marine Corps Gen. Charles Wilhelm,
commander-in-chief of Southern Command, which oversees US military activities
and assistance in South America. ““I think the connection between the insurgents
and the narco-traffickers has been very clearly demonstrated. This is an insurgency
that has been sustaining itself for a number of years, so I think the linkage
is definitely there.”
Jan. 29 Marvin Chavez, founder of the Orange County Cannabis Coop, is sentenced
to six years for selling marijuana to two undercover agents posing as patients
and mailing mj to a cancer patient. Chavez was not allowed to cite Prop 215
in his defense. Family and friends weep as he is led away in handcuffs. J.
Prosecutor Carl Armbrust sums up: “Marijuana is still an illicit drug in the
United States, and California is still part of the United States.”
Defense attorney James Silva says, “The message sent out from Orange County
today is ‘hide.’” Silva charges that Chavez’s probation report violated
his rights to free speech. “Mr. Chavez says he would continue to travel around
the state and ‘educate’ people about medical marijuana,” the Probation
Dept. had warned the judge. Silva and David Nick will appeal on
the grounds that the judge erred in not allowing the jury to hear a defense
based on Prop 215. They hope to link Chavez’s appeal to Dave
Herrick’s.
Also in January: Scientific American reports that more than 40 percent
of US corporations monitor their employees by checking e-mail, voice
mail and telephone conversations, recording computer keystrokes and
video surveillance (some in lockers and bathrooms). One quarter of
Fortune 500 companies release confidential employee info to government
agencies without a subpoena; 70 percent give the information to creditors.
But three-quarters of the companies will not allow employees to see
supervisors’ evaluations of their own performance...
“In the interest of military readiness and good order and discipline,” declares
Lt. Col. Greg Girard of the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s office in the
Pentagon, “active-duty Reserve and Air National Guard Members “are now prohibited
from consuming any products containing hemp seed oil.” Minute quantites
of THC in hemp seed confound the urinalyses that the AF relies on... Express
Personal Services, a large temp agency in the southwest, reports that marijuana
users account for 83 percent of employees who fail drug tests, followed by alcohol
(10%), amphetamines (6%) and cocaine (1%). The true
nature of America’s “drug problem” is revealed!
February 1 International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio
Samaranch —a longtime Franco flunky whose staffers call him “Your Excellency”— will
oversee an Olympic Movement Anti-Doping Agency run by Prince Alexandre
de Merode, IOC medical commissioner. Drug testing was introduced at
the 1968
Olympics. “Thirty years later, it has unfortunately become clear that... doping
is spreading at a terrifying rate,” the IOC admits. Their answer? More drug testing.
[If the rich/poor system didn’t create such enormous stakes, few athletes would
go to such dangerous lengths. The system perverts every field: sports, science,
law...]
A policeman writing under the name Marcus Laffey in the New Yorker confides, “The
war on drugs is a game for me, no matter how urgent it is for poor neighborhoods
or how grave the risks are for cops. We call dealers ‘players,’ and there are
rules as in chess, percentages as in poker, and moves asin school yard ball.
When I went from being a beat cop to working in narcotics, the change was refreshing.
For one thing, you deal only with
criminals. No more domestic disputes...”
Feb. 2 Kim Levin of the Shasta Patient Alliance asks the county board
of supervisors to provide guidelines for medical marijuana users seeking
to grow
their own. Levin’s husband Rick is on 100% disability following a severe back
injury. The Levins were charged with cultivation of 41 unsexed seedlings. Writes
Kim: “My husband Rick suffers from severe spasms and pain following a fall that
burst his T12 vertebra and caused spinal cord damage. His primary care
doctor wrote a four-page declaration of approval for continued use of medijuana.
Our case continues to get more bizarre because of the prosecuting DA and Judge
Ruggerio not allwing a medical defense, prescription/declaration or records to
be admitted. We have met Marshall and Marilyn Loscot, another prosecuted Shasta
County patient/caregiver who was sentenced in this same
judge’s courtroom -and also no medical use was considered. After months of crying
(unbelief my government could to this mot me when there is a law on the books!!)
I am now angry and going to the County Board of Supes to request they state what
a patient can possess or grow here.”
Feb. 5 After a review of clinical studies
conducted by National Institute of Mental Health researchers, 29 are
suspended and 50
altered because of “ethical problems,” i.e., patients being taken off medicine
so that scientists could observe the return of symptoms, and patients not being
told they faced serious risks without hope of benefit. Numerous experiments involved
ketamine, an anesthetic sold on the streets as a hallucinogen. It was used in
people with mental illness and in healthy
volunteers to study “the biology of psychoses.” The NIMH is a branch
of the National Institutes of Health, the agency that oversees government-funded
academic research. These studies were being conducted by doctors and PhDs, with
the informed consent of other doctors and PhDs. The
Boston Globe broke the story.
Add press congrats and game imagery: The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette runs an
eye-opening piece by Kenneth Heard describing the efforts of the West Memphis
Police to stop cars and trucks hauling illegal drugs and/or large sums of cash —and
the lucrative pay-offs. “When money is confiscated during traffic stops, law
enforcement agencies can go through either federal or state civil forfeiture
procedures to obtain some of the money seized. It is more lucrative for agencies
to use federal procedures because they can receive up to 80 percent of the
cash.” Amounts over $250,000 go to the state’s asset forfeiture fund —which
is penniless because law enforcement agencies that confiscate more than $250,000
always go through federal forfeiture procedures. Heard quotes an investigator
with the Crittenden County Drug Task Force, Mickey Thornton,
saying, “It’s like a game for everyone: how well can they hide it and how well
can we find it?”
Feb. 7 The Clinton-Gore administration announces a five-part
plan
designed to cut drug use in half by 2007. [See letter, page 3, “Drug-free at
last!”]... The International Control Board, an independent panel that oversees
U.N. drug-control treaties, reports that people in North and South America consume
large amounts of performance-enhancing drugs and stimulants, commonly
called “uppers,” while Europeans are the world’s top users of stress-reducing
drugs, also known as “downers.” The report notes that “particularly in the United
States, performance-enhancing drugs are given to children to boost school performance
or help them conform with the emands of school life. They are also taken by adults
to achieve the desired body image, boost athletic proess and social skills, or
enhance sexual performance.” The ICRB also calls for more research to determine
whether cannabis is beneficial.
Feb. 8 Some 20 supporters of Renee Emry-Wolfe picket the U.S. Department of
Justice to protest the prosecution of a multiple sclerosis patient for smoking
a
joint in Congressman McCollum’s office. The indigent mother of three flew in
from Ann Arbor, Michigan, only to be notified that her trial will be delayed —again— until
April 23.... The Clinton-Gore administration seeks $18 billion for drug control
programs in next year’s budget; about two-thirds goes to law enforcement and
interdiction. Al Gore calls drug abuse “a spiritual
problem” and says alientated youth are vulnerable to “messages that are part
of a larger entity of evil.”
Feb. 9 U.S. State Dept. spokesman James Rubin voices concern about alleged
drug
trafficking by North Korea. (You won’t hear Madeline’s top aide talking about
the heroin trafficking of the Kosovar Liberation Army...)
Feb. 10 In Queensland, Australia, Justice Alan Demack drops charges
against a 54-year-old man who pled guilty to cultivating and possessing marijuana,
which he said he used for chronic back pain. The head of the Australian Medical
Association disses the judge’s precedent-setting move. “There is no scientific
evidence available from proper trials to justify the use of marijuana in palliative
care.”
Feb. 13-14 California NORML convenes in San Luis Obispo. The
Libertarian Party announces a drive to recall Placer County DA Brad
Fennochio and Sheriff Edward Bonner for going after Steve and Michelle
Kubby.
Feb. 15 Hemp Golden Ale is served on Air Force One as the Clintons return
from their trip to Mexico, where they assured President Ernesto Zedillo that
Mexico would again be certified to receive massive US military aid in support
of its drug interdiction efforts... An American Bar Association task force
led by
Reagan’s Attorney General, Edwin Meese III, warns lawmakers against the “misguided,
unnecessary and harmful” tendency of showing they are tough on criminals by turning
more offenses into federal crimes. The report notes that the number of federal
prosecutors in US attorneys offices increased from 3,000
to 8,000 since the late ‘60s.
Feb. 16 A report from the US Customs Service to a Congressional oversight
panel admits that the drug war has left the agency highly vulnerable to corruption.
The report reveals a “long history of strife and infighting” between its Internal
Affairs unit and its Office of Investigations.
Feb. 17 The heads of 17 AIDS organizations send an open letter
asking
Barry McCaffrey to give fast-track approval to marijuana. “You may be aware that
the standard Food and Drug Administration approval process has been streamlined
for several medications important to people living with HIV disease and AIDS.
Drugs shown to fall within an acceptable standard of safety have been made available
to patients before completion of all scientific trials proving effectiveness.
This special procedure has helped thousands of patients to obtain life-extending
benefits from new medications, and has contributed directly to building the science
base for such new drugs. Our request is simple. Just as other promising AIDS
medications have been made available prior to final FDA approval, so too should
marijuana, when recommended by a physician, be made available to patients who
choose to use it.”
Also 2/17 CBS Morning News reports that more employers are testing hair samples
to screen job candidates for past drug use —and that different labs come up
with widely different results on samples from identical heads of hair, and
on different heads of hair exposed to identical amounts of drugs... On the
island
of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, a popular reggae singer — Joseph Topize, known
as “Kaya”— is arrested for smoking marijuana at a rally, setting off riots. Kaya
will die after four days in police custody. An autopsy by a French doctor will
reveal, “The victim was thrown violently with the head facing the ground... We
noted traces of blows to the knees by a blunt instrument.”
Feb. 18: The Chicago Tribune describes a visit by a police officer and his
drug-sniffing German Shepherd to a local elementary school. “This dog bites
with a pressure of 1,000 to 1,500 pounds per square inch,” the children are
informed. The dog “mesmerizes his audience by ripping apart sofa cushions
to find chemicals that smell like heroin and crack cocaine.” Says
officer Schulz, “The kids just love to see what we can teach these guys to
do...”
Also 2/18 The Sacramento News & Review runs an excellent piece by Michael
Pulley surveying the disimplementation of Prop 215 in the Central Valley. More
than 30 medical mj users have been arrested in the Sacramento region, according
to Ryan Landers. Dave Thornton, an investigator for the state Medical Board,
acknowledges that the board is investigating “a handful” of doctors -including
Dr. Alex Stalcup of Concord, who has worked for years as a consultant to the
California Narcotics Officers Association. “I’ve run a practice that has a
lot of pain patients,” Stalcup tells Pulley. “[Medical marijuana] is a major
step forward for pain patients. I don’t write a lot of [recommendations]. I
write them for people who are regular patients of mine. Unfortunately, quite
a few of those patients have been arrested and are facing
prosecution.”
The Medical Board is also investigating Dr. Stephen Banister of Nevada City,
writes Pulley. A patient of Banister’s named Wesly Stockdale was informed by
letter that the Board wanted to review his medical records, and would subpoena
the records if Stockdale did not grant permission within 10 days. Stockdale
replied, “I will not sign a release of my records with Dr. Banister. Not only
to I find this to be a gross invasion of my privacy (wherein I also object
to the subpoenaing of my records in any and every way possible) but I believe
Dr. Banister to be a man of high integrity, competence, decency and compassion
and I believe that the review of my chosen physician to be a highly inappropriate
and
misguided action.” Stockdale was initially arrested for possession of marijuana
before Prop 215 passed, Pulley reports. “One of the conditions of his probation
was that he was not allowed to smoke pot. After Prop 215 passed, Banister recommended
pot for a chronic spasticity problem in Stockdale’s back. Stockdale challenged
the probation restriction in Nevada County Superior Court on the grounds that
medical necessity under Prop 215 took precedence over the probationary restriction.
The court ruled in Stockdale’s favor. Despite that ruling, the medical board
launched its investigation of Banister, who could not
be reached for comment.”
Feb. 19 Nineteen drug companies agree to pay $176 milion to settle a
class action lawsuit alleging they gouged the public for medicines sold through
independent pharmacies. (Independent druggists were paying up to $28.90
for 100 tablets of a synthetic thyrod drug while HMOs paid as little as $1.43.) the
companies —Merck, Abbott Laboratories, Glaxo Wellcome, Squibb et
al— will provide brand-name drugs to clinics that dispense drugs to the poor.
[See Ap[ril 21 follow-up.]
Feb. 20 The Federation of American Scientists urges President Clinton
to instruct the National Institutes of Health to carry out research on marijuana
wherever there are “prima facie” indications of possible efficacy —without waiting
for the Institute of Medicine to complete its review of the literature. Reviewing
the literature is said to be “the least important
function,” and that the investigators should have been instructed to help NIH
design suitable experiments.
A Letter from Marvin 2/20/99
Mira,
I am still here in Santa Ana waiting to be transferred, the question is when.
I’ve been too sick call three times about my medical condition [Marvin has
Ankylosing Spondylitis, a degenerative spinal arthritis). My symptoms are headaches,
pressure behind my eyes and ears, pain in my neck and shoulders, my spine is
stiff, teeth grinding and jaw pain, muscle spasms, and a rash behind my
neck.
I’ve only seen a nurse —no doctors. I question the qualifications of these
people. My concerns as a patient and disabled person are to receive quality
medical care under the Americans with Disabilities Act that I am being denied.
Please share this information with people, newspapers, etc.
What I am worried about, and told the medical person, is my neck and spine
when they transfer me. I was told it is a four hour or so ride that may cause
more
damage to my neck or spine.
Please let everyone know that I am grateful for their support. While I am in
here, I am educating patients about their rights. While I ‘ am here as a political
prisoner, I pray that we can get medical cannabis to the patients that need
it. It is the law.
I want to clear something. They accused me of wrongdoing by selling
cannabis
to undercover agents. The fact is on court record — the agent who posed as the
patient said I made it clear that the cannabis was FREE, that if he could make
a
donation, it was for copies, etc. Those are the facts.
I thank you for your great support. Keep it up.
Everything will turn out for the best for all of us.
Marvin Chavez, Sr.
Central Men’s Jail, Santa Ana
Feb. 21 Thousands of protesters in Maruitius clash with police
protesting the death in prison of Joseph Reginald Topizem who been
arrested for
smoking marijuana at a rally to decriminalize the herb.
Feb. 22 Ryan Huntsman, 19, files suit against the city of Newport Beach and
the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, alleging that his constitutional
rights were violated when he was transfered without due process another high
school after police found a marijuana pipe in his car... New York becomes the
first city in the U.S. to seize vehicles on the spot of drivers suspected of
drunken
driving- including first-time offenders. Under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s new policy,
if a suspect is convicted on DUI charges, the vehicle will be auctioned off by
the Police Dept.
Feb. 24 Black leaders and public health advocates publish an open
letter to
Barry McCaffrey stating that they are “deeply troubled” by his “inaccurate
and misleading statements” opposing needle exchange programs and
medical marijuana. Among the signers: San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown,
Jr., former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, and author Henry Louis Gates.
Feb. 25 Fresno radio station KFCF invites Mike Alcalay, Jeff Jones
and Dale Gieringer to hold a public meeting on medical marijuana. No doctors
in
the area are willing to recommend marijuana as a medical treatment. “They’re
scared,” explains a man in the audience. “I called doctors from Salinas to Three
Rivers and not a one would see me.”
The LA Times publishes an eloquent op-ed by John Vasconcellos asking “What
kind of a government carries on a crusade against the will of its voter, favors
pain and even death for some of its people?”
Feb. 26 State Senator Tom Hayden introduces a bill, SB 1261, to establish a
Commission on Drug Policy and violence that would study the link between prohibition
and drug-related violence. Hayden notes, “The economic benefits of illegal
drug production and distribution are an incentive for traffickers and dealers
who utilize violence as a means of establishing market control... Efforts to
suppress this illegal drug production, distribution and use have led to an
unprecedented expansion of law enforcement and a military war on drug cartels,
resulting in further levels of violence.”
Feb. 28-March 1 “Every 20 seconds someone in the U.S. is arrested for
a drug violation. Every week, on average, a new jail or prison is built to
lock up
more people in the world’s largest penal system.” Thus begins a brilliant two-part
feature in the New York Times by Timothy Egan, who debunks the “crack
epidemic” and recounts the costs of the prohibition effort -including loss of
freedom and widespread misery. Among the many facts Egan cites: “Surplus military
gear has also flooded into SWAT squads’ lockers. Between 1995 and 1997 alone
the Department of Defense gave police departments 1.2 million pieces of military
hardware, including 73 grenade launchers and 112 armored personnel
carriers.”
Also in February : DuPont pays $7.7 billion to acquire the world’s biggest
seed company, Pioneer Hi-Bred International. “The deal establishes the
Wilmington, Del., chemicals giant as the dominant power in the rapidly growing
cro-biotech industry,” notes the WSJ. “The agreement is a blow to Monsanto,
and will rattle the U.S. Farm Belt, where genetically modified crops are spreading
like wildfire.”
Five girls die after their car plows into a utility poll; there is evidence
they’d been “huffing” Duster 11, a spray used to clean computer keyboards that
contains difluoroethane. Some 240 people have died since 1996 according to
the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition. Huffing is ranked fourth among
all
forms of substance abuse by teens. More than 1,000 products contain “euphoriants,” including
vegetable cooking spray and typewriter correction fluid. Most inhalants depress
the central nervous system and show the heart, sometimes to an irregular beat.
A federal study in ’97 estimated that new users of inhalants had increased to
805,000 from 380,000 in 1991, and that most
were between the ages 12 and 17.
March 1 Dear Abby runs a letter from Steve Wilcott of San Francisco,
criticizing Barry McCaffrey’s “inaccurate statement that Holland has
a
higher crime rate than the United States due to Holland’s liberal drug policies.
In fact, Holland has a much lower crime rate than the U.S. Obviously,
Holland’s oderate approach works far better than our draconian criminal approach.
The United States should follow Holland’s good example and make a distinction
betwen marijuana and hard drugs... By lying about the alleged dangers of marijuana,
we cast doubt on the warnings about truly dangerous cocaine, LSD, heroin and
designer drugs.” Abby responds, “I agree that marijuana laws are overdue
for an overhaul. I also favor the medical use of
marijuana —if it’s prescribed by a physician. I cannot understand why the federal
government should interfere with the doctor-patient relationship, nor why it
would ignore the will of a marjoity of voters who have legally approved such
legislation.”
Also 3/1 A study by the Justice Police Institute in San Francisco finds no
correlation between California’s general drop in crime and the imposition of
longer, mandatory sentences for repeat felons... Catch-23: In Kentucky, a
U.S. District Judge dismisses a suit that would enable farmers to grow hemp.
The
judge ruled that the farmers don’t have standing to challenge the law that prohibits
growing hemp because they are not being hurt by it; and they are not being hurt
by the law because they don’t grow hemp.
March 2 Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass) reintroduces the “Medical
Use of Marijuana Act,” which would set aside federal controls on marijuana,
so the states can determine their own policies. Frank’s bill would modify the
Controlled Substances Act and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act so that
none of their provisions would restrict
(A) the prescription or recommendation of marijuana by a physician for medical
use,
(B) an individual from obtaining and using marijuana from a prescription or
recommendation of marijuana by a physician for medical use by such individual,
or
(C) a pharmacy from obtaining and holding marijuana for the prescription of
marijuana by a physician for medical use under applicable state law in
a
State in which marijuana may be prescribed or recommended by a physician
for medical use under applicable State law.” The legislation would reschedule
marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II under federal law, thereby making it
legal for physicians to prescribe.
In Albany, New York, more than 500 people of various political persuasions
protest the Rockefeller drug laws at the state Capitol. The laws, enacted in
1973 under Nelson Rockefeller, have resulted in more than 23,000 people in
state prison for drug offenses, at a cost of $2 billion. Four out of five were
never
convicted of a violent felony; 17 percent had no prior felony arrests.
March 3 My name is Michael Baldwin. My wife and
I are the
defendants in medical Marijuana case in Placer County. Our case is very
similar to the Kubby’s case except our case was presented secretly to the Grand
Jury and the DA had us indicted on pure hearsay testimony. They based our
whole case on a .25 g joint. Who has ever heard of a .25 g
joint.... In our case the sheriff did not find any incriminating evidence
that points to sales. No money, no receipts, no prepackaged marijuana, no large
quantities of marijuana, and nothing else that points to sales. They only turned
up a small makeshift garden and written recommendations establishing its
legality. 916-652-9206 I can be reached at (916) 632-7962, <[email protected]> or
<[email protected]hotmail.com>
Also 3/3 Canadian Health Minister Allan Rock announces that
his department is developing guidelines for clinical trials on the
therapeutic
benefits of marijuana. Rock’s announcement pre-empts a debate in the House
of Commons on a bill supported by the Bloc Quebecois, New Democrat and Progressive
Conservatives, as well as prominent doctors among the liberals. Says Liberal
MP Carolyn Bennett, “It’s been a shame that when there’s something that really
works for people, they have to use illegal routes to get it.”
Hilary Black of the Vancouver Compassion Club comments, “If Rock wanted to
show good faith, he would put a stay on any criminal proceeding right now that
has anything to do with medical use, and that would show that this is real
and
not just political fluff.” Law professor Alan Young says the announcement
was made “simply to stall and to create the illusion that this government does
truly care about the plight of sick people.” Derek Kent of Health Canada
says the government is “working at determining where medicinal-quality marijuana
can be located, where it could be legally
available.” Young counters, “they’re the only institution that can license a
manufacturer, so they keep setting themslves up for failure by saying ‘We
don’t have the clinical trials, we don’t have a licensed manufacturer.’ That’s
all a product of our government’s policy. Rock hasn’t specified what medical
or health indications they’re looking at. Even if they started the trial process
tomorrow, it will take four or five years before we see any substantive results
or data.”
To insist on more research before allowing medical use is to “laugh
in the
face of the Canadian public.” —Marie Andree Bertrand
Marie Andree Bertrand, a member of the government’s famous Le Dain
commission that in 1971 recommended decriminalization, says that to
insist on
more research before allowing medical use is to “laugh in the face of the Canadian
public.” The research she says, was done and paid for 25 years ago. According
to Colman Jones of Now Magazine, the Le Dain commission “cited a series of classified
U.S. army studies from the ‘50s showing potentially valuable therapeutic effects
from the use of synthetic cannabinoids for everything from fever and epilepsy
to high blood pressure. Says Bertrand, ‘We spoke of all the symptoms that
would be alleviated by cannabis. The minister is reinventing the wheel. This
is full of bullshit.”
Percentage of Canadians glad that the government is now going to sponsor research:
78.
Add Canada Stats
• More than seven out of every 10 drug offenses in Canada were related to marijuana
in ‘97 and two-thirds of them were for simple possession.
• Canadians charged with marijuana offenses in ‘97: 47,908 (up from 33,267
in ‘91, belying police claims that it’s a low priority bust)
• Some 600,000 Canadians have criminal records for using marijuana.
March 4 Alaska’s medical marijuana law goes into effect but the Department
of Health and Social Services is not yet accepting applications for
identification cards (which are required by the law). Republican Sen.
Loren Leman, who opposed the measure, immediately introduces a bill
that would require users to register with the state (registration was
optional according to the initiative, which passed with almost 60 percent).
Leman also wants limits on what ailments qualify and restrictions on
doctors’ rights to recommend... A report in Nature overthrows
the notion that addiction is a result of increased levels of the neurotransmitter
dopamine. For more than a decade NIDA-funded scientists have spent
millions trying to develop drugs that would “cure” cocaine addiction
by blocking dopamine. There is hardly a mea culpa as NIDA turns out
to have been dead wrong for two decades.
March 6 The U.S. donates $500,000 in drug-fighting equipment to Zimbabwe’s
Criminal Investigation Department —faxes, computers, printers, two
sniffer-dog trailers, and funding for two officers to attend a two-week
training session in
South Africa. A CID official says the main focus will be on marijuana (dagga)...
State Department spokesman James Rubin warns Caribbean countries
they’d better “cooperate in the international fight against drug
trafficking” or else Madeline spank. (Members of the Caribbean Community
had voted to suspend agreements whereby U.S. forces patroled their countries.
) Jamie blithers, “The growing recognition of the problems of marijuana
use and the corrupting and corrosive effect of economic dependency on the illegal
trade
is provoking cannabis growers to rationalize their illegal activity.”
March 7 Timothy Egan in the New York Times exposes the extent
of the
police state. “In the federal system, nearly 60 percent of all people behind
bars are doing time for drug violations. In state prisons and local jails, the
figure is 22 percent...Triple the rate of 15 years ago.... More than 400,000
people are behind bars for drug crimes —and nearly a third of them are locked
up for simply possessing an illegal drug.” Egan quotes Ed Meese, Reagan’s attorney
general, calling for a review of mandatory minimums.
March 9 Judge George King’s ruling against Peter McWilliams
is
announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. McWilliams, who is on
protease inhibitors, sought to smoke marijuana while awaiting trial. Alternatively,
he requested placement in the federal compassionate use program, which has been
closed to new members since 1992. “We are not empowered to grant what amounts
to a license to violate federal law,” wrote King. Marijuana is classified
as a Schedule I controlled substance. As such, Congress determined that it has
no currently accepted medical use.” Sick? Call a Congressman.
March 9 The American Journal of Psychiatry publishes a
report on
treating Tourette’s Syndrome with THC in the form of Marinol. A 25-year
old man who began smoking marijuana on his own at age 19 noted “a marked improvement
of both vocal and motor tics and associated behavioral disorders.” He was
followed by a group of German doctors in an uncontrolled open clinical trial.
After treatment, the severity of his tics declined markedly. The improvement
began 30 minutes after he was given 10mg of Marinol and lasted for about 7 hours;
no adverse effects were noted. A doubleblind, placebo-controlled study is now
planned.
March 10 District Judge Robert Murphy observes that “the drugs of choice
in the Payne County (Oklahoma) area have changed to methamphetamines and kids
have changed more to inhalants such as gold paint” during his five years on
the bench. Have you talked to your kids about sniffing gold paint?...
March 11 The Clinton Administration asks for $17.8 billion for
the drug war in fiscal 2000. The budget has more than quadrupled since 1988
(while availability of illegal drugs has risen and the price of cocaine and
heroin has
fallen). Two thirds of the money goes for incarceration and interdiction,
one-third for prevention. The new budget would give the Bureau of Prisons
a 13% increase and the FBI a 19 percent increase. The budget for the US
Attorney’s office would go up 50 percent.
March 14 An LA Times editorial describes Prop 215 as “a carelessly
crafted measure, permitting physicians to prescribe marijuana not just
for serious
conditions like cancer, AIDS and glaucoma, but for ‘any other illness for which
marijuana provides relief.’ That’s a huge loophole inviting illegal
use of marijuana.” 1. The authors of the initiative were not so careless as to
use the word “prescribe,” given the federal constraints on doctors. 2. By passing
Prop 215, the voters of California made it legal for patients and physicians
to determine which conditions marijuana might be useful in treating. We changed
the law —whether or not the Attorney General and the corporate media got the
message.
Also 3/14 The Justice Department reports that the number of inmates in the
US
rose to 1.8 million in 1998 —although crime rates dropped for the seventh consecutive
year. Drug offenses accounted for the greatest share of the
increase.
March 16 Circuit Court Judge Michael Marcus orders the Portland
City Attorney to let defense lawyers review documents of the Police
Bureau’s
Marijuana Task Force pertaining to a “trap and trace” device used for at least
three years to monitor incoming calls to American Agriculture, which sells indoor
growing equipment. The police would knock on the doors of the callers and pressure
the residents to permit a search of the premises. [Old-timers will remember
when the ominous “knock on the door” symbolized the “totalitarian” police state.]
Also 3/16, in Ottawa, as onlookers weep, RCMP agents smash the indoor growing
operation of Aubert Marin, who for 20 years has provided marijuana to AIDS
and
cancer patients.
Minnesota Jesse Ventura withholds support from a bill that would allow
a patient with a note from a physician to possess up to 1.5 ounces
of marijuana
after the Republican Public Safety Commissioner says “it would create a nightmare
for law enforcement.”
March 17 The Institute of Medicine releases its long-awaited
report on
the medical potential of marijuana. The IOM team
• confirms that marijuana has been effective in treating chronic pain, nausea
from cancer chemotherapy, lack of appetite and wasting in AIDS patients.
• strongly advocates research into and development of cannabinoid drugs.
• debunks the notions that marijuana is addictive and that its use leads to heroin
and cocaine use.
• notes that marijuana has a lower potential for abuse than alcohol or tobacco,
and is safer than many commonly used drugs.
However, the report contains strong warnings about the dangers of smoking,
and does not recommend using marijuana in the treatment of Parkinson’s or
Huntington’s diseases, seizures, migraines, glaucoma, and many other ailments
for which patients and doctors contend it provides relief.
Barry McCaffrey’s response: “What marijuana legalizers won’t tell you is that
a substance found in marijuana can be delivered through various legal
means.” [Marinol as the rationale for prohibition... McCaffrey delayed releasing
the report for more than a month while his staff developed these moronic non
sequitur soundbites.] White House spokesman Joe Lockhart summarizes the party
line: “What we found out is that there may be some chemical compounds in marijuana
that are useful in pain relief or anti-nausea, but that smoking marijuana is
a crude delivery system. So I think what this calls for is
further research.”
Dennis Peron looks at the bright side of the report. “Vindication! We were
right all the while! The science is there. Is the political will there?”
March 18 Testimony begins in the trial of Robert Michael Galambos, 34,
from Paloma in western Calaveras County man who was busted in July ’97 with
382 plants which he was growing for the Oakland club, according to a contract
signed before the bust. Defense lawyer Tony Serra argues that Galambos believed
the clubs were lawful and therefore he could legally grow for them. Galambos
is also a medical marijuana user who suffered a fractured skull in a car wreck
10
years ago. He obtained a doctor’s recommendation two months after his
arrest.
Also 3/18 Anna Boyce is invited by assistant sheriff George Jaramillo to visit
department headquarters and discuss the implementation of Prop 215. Boyce
comments, “When we wrote this it never occurred to us that there would be distribution
problems. We always assumed there would be centers where people would go for
cannabis, because a few already existed.” This is the key point
obscured by Zimmerman’s take-over of the campaign: Prop 215 was a referendum
on the buyers’ clubs’ right to operate.
March 19 Attorney General Bill Lockyer tells San Francisco officials “I
have no intention of intervening” against local cannabis clubs -but a low-profile
approach is necessary to ward off a move by the federal government. Supervisor
Tom Ammiano summarizes the AG’s position: “If we attempt to distribute marijuana
to those who are verifiably sick, and if that is not done with an in-your-face
attitude, we can almost guarantee that those people’s
needs will be met.” District Attorney Hallinan urges Lockyer to drop charges
against Dennis Peron et al stemming from Lungren’s infamous Aug. 4 ’96 raid...
San Mateo submits a proposal to the National Institute on Drug Abuse for a clinical
trial of the effects of smoking marijuana on nausea, anorexia and weight loss
stemming from AIDS and cancer treatments.
March 22 Richard Brookhiser, a senior editor of National Review, comments on
the
IOM report in a New York Times op-ed piece: “I had reached the same conclusions
as a cancer patient seven years ago.” [One of the reasons rationality may prevail
is that the need for medical cannabis crosses class
lines.]
March 23 In San Diego Superior Court Steve McWilliams and
Dion Markgraaff plead guilty to maintaining a place for distribution of a controlled
substance. The case began more than a year earlier when McWilliams was arrested
as he attempted to deliver a van full of plants to a quadrapeligic patient
whose
garden had been destroyed by San Diego county sheriff’s deputies. The plants
were the property of and a gift from the members of the San Diego Cannabis
Caregivers’ Club. In exchange for their plea, the prosecution dropped seven other
felony charges against McWilliam and Markgraaf. “There’s nothing to be
won here,” said Markgraaff. “I’ve been conspiring to help people. I
pleaded guilty.”
Also 3/23The Clinton Administration publishes a list of European goods
it will subject to huge tariffs if Europe refuses to buy beef from
American
corporations. (“American farmers” is how the New York Times describes the
rejected vendors.) European trade officials are worried about the longterm
effects on humans of eating cattle raised on hormone-laced feed. The U.S. government
is threatening a trade war if the Europeans continue to rely on “faulty studies” questioning
the safety of the beef. This same U.S.
government -so confident about people eating trace hormones in their beef-
is so worried about the hypothesized longterm effects of marijuana smoke that
it will continue imprisoning its own citizens who inhale it. Inconsistent? No
-whatever they do they do in the name of science...Why do our experts think all
those little girls are getting their periods at age five? All those little boys
being born with the urethra coming out at the base of the penis? And how come
the meat tastes so much better in Europe?
March 24 At the National AIDS Update Conference in San Francisco,
Dr. Joycelyn Elders calls for legalizing marijuana and defines the
war on drugs as
racist from the start. “Our heroin policies were really racist policies against
the Chinese. Our marijuana policies were mostly against the Mexicans. It
hasn’t been scientific data that has made the policies in the first place,” asserts
the Surgeon General ousted by Clinton. “Marijuana has never killed a single person.
Tobacco kills four hundred-some thousand a year. We’ve made the prison
industry a major industry primarily on marijuana.”
March 25 Robert Galambos is found guilty on cultivation charges;
the
jury deadlocks on possession for sale after a full day’s deliberations. Galambos
faces three years in prison. District Attorney Seth Mathews won’t say whether
his office will retry Galambos on the possession for sale count. “We feel
that more people are going to be prosecuted because of this,” says defense lawyer
Shari Greenberger, “especially in areas like Calaveras
County...” Tony Serra had argued that prosecuting growers who were supplying
medical marijuana dispensaries and uses is like ‘legalizing milk and outlawing
the cow.” Galambos had declined a plea bargain that would have required him to
accept a felony conviction because he aspires to a career in special education.
He had been working towards a degree in child development at Columbia College.
One of his teachers, attended his trial. She told the Modesto
Bee that “Galambos was one of her best students, and had been doing exemplary
work with pre-schoolers as part of his training. ‘He is thoughtful, considerate,
sensitive and intelligent,’ she said. ‘We need more people like him going into
child development, and if he couldn’t be a teacher it would be a tremendous loss
to society.’
March 23 Arsenic levels in some states’ drinking
water are high enough to cause bladder cancer, according to a National
Research
Council study that calls for prompt imposition of lower limits. The current
limit —50 parts per billion— was set in 1942. In 1962 the Public Health Service
recommended a limit of 10 ppb for intersate suppliers (the same standard adopted
by the World Health Organization). But government policy has remained unchanged
all these years while scientists debated contradictory data about the dangers
of arsenic. (Although arsenic occurs naturally in some soils, it is also a byproduct
of mining and chemical production.)
March 26 Attorney General Lockyer returns from a trip to Washington
during which he met with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and drug
czar Barry R.
McCaffrey, to discuss the implementation of Prop 215. “‘Both were very clear
that medical marijuana use violates federal law,’” Lockyer reported. According
to the Sacramento Bee, “McCaffrey added that a massive research effort
is needed to determine if marijuana has any medical value. Lockyer said he told
McCaffrey that state law authorizes him to conduct certain marijuana-related
research. But McCaffrey told Lockyer he’d be violating federal law and risking
arrest [personally!] if he did so. In the short term, Lockyer said, there will
be no change in federal policy and California’s law should be improved so solid
statutes are in place if and when the federal
government recognizes it.”
Also 3/26 A Gallup poll shows that 73 percent of Americans would “vote
for making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to
reduce pain and suffering.” The highest support was among independent voters,
at 79 percent, and among 18-to-29 year olds (77%). The percentage expressing
support for outright legalization was 29% -and you can bet a few of the 1,018
taking part in the phone survey would vote yes in the privacy of the ballot
box but not to a Gallup pollster... The United Nations International Drug Control
Program will create its own satellite system to monitor the cultivation of
illicit plants.
March 30 Representatives of 400 South American tribes
challenge a U.S. patent awarded to a California entrepreneur for the
main ingredient of a plant called ayahuasca. Their lawyer, David Downes,
says, “When people claim as private property something that is sacred
knowledge of thousands of people, we fear that patents have gone too
far into the public domain.” Turmeric and basmati rice have been patented
in the U.S.
Also in March: Sen. John Vasconcellos introduces SB 847, which would fund research
on marijuana through the University of California; and SB 848, a “spot
bill” on distribution that will be written after Lockyer’s Task Force has made
its recommendations... Montana and Virginia formally call for an end to the
federal ban on industrial hemp. The New Hampshire House narrowly defeats a
bill that would have made it legal to grow hemp. The Minnesota Senate
passes a bill to allow experimental hemp production, but the House votes it
down. The House also nixes a bill that would have authorized the University
of Minnesota to conduct hemp research after the head of the Minneapolis DEA
office testifies “An illegal drug under a different name is still an illegal
drug.” [The goal of the research would have been to further reduce the THC
content of hemp.]...
Timothy Jost of Ohio State, writing in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics,
concludes that physicians are inhibited from prescribing pain medications because
they don’t want legal authorities to think they’re abetting drug abuse... Scientists
discover that the harmless natural oil that gives peaches their smell also
kills fungus and other pests in the soil, and could replace methyl bromide,
the widely used soil fumigant that is toxic to people and damages the ozone
layer... A federal class action suit is filed in Oakland and Los Angeles to
hold the CIA and Department of Justice liable for supporting the importation
of crack cocaine into the US (to finance the
Contras’ cause in Nicaragua in the 1980s)....The Hawaii House votes to have the
state grow an experimental 10-acre crop... Former CIA Director James Woolsey
is hired by the North American Industrial Hemp Council to lobby for repeal. The
DEA bases its opposition on fears that legalizing hemp would “send the wrong
message to young people” and enable farmers to grow high-THC plants without detection.
Woolsey and Blandon entering the hemp business at roughly the same
time —conspiracy theorists take note.
The U.S. threatens to retaliate with tariffs on selective European products
unless the European Union lifts its ban on hormone-laced U.S. beef... Steve
Howe, a former major league pitcher who was suspended for drug and alcohol use
during his playing days, is told he can’t volunteer as a coach for the girls
softball team in Whitefish, Montana, on which his daughter plays second base.
Pending a background check. Says Howe: “I’m kind of dumbounded by the
whole thing,” Right now a lot of damage is being done to these kids and to the
program. And for what reason? I don’t know.”
April Piomelli et al publish a study in Nature Neuroscience
concluding that “The endocannabinoid system may act as an inhibitory
feedback mechanism countering dopamine-induced facilitation of motor
activity.” Both dopamine and anandamide are produced in a structure
of the brain called the
striatum and released simultaneously. Piomelli’s group at UC Irvine determined
that the two neurotransmitters acted in concert. Working with mice, they
blocked the brain’s cannabinoid receptors with an antagonist drug, and produced
a surge in dopamine -resulting in the mice developing nervous tics and jerky
movements. These symptoms are akin to those of people with Tourette’s syndrome
and Parkinson’s disease. If anandamide -the body’s own cannabinoid- has a modulating
influence on dopamine, this would explain why inhaling or ingesting external
cannabinoids provides some patients with relief from the
symptoms of Tourette’s and Parkinson’s....
“State Will Run Out of Prison Space in 2001.”
—Headline
on an A.P. story in the Mercury News.
“Farmers Lobby to Legalize the Growing of Hemp”
—Headline
on page 1 of The New York Times.
April 7 In San Francisco prospective club proprietors Jane Weirick
and
Wayne Justman —Peronistas who have been running a medical marijuana delivery
service called Compassion On Wheels— meet with Erminia Palacio, MD of the city
health department. Their medical director, Tod Mikuriya, asks the city to sponsor
a clinical trial testing the efficacy of cannabis in combination with disulfiram
in the treatment of alcoholism. He has developed a protocol and hopes to use
the new club as the study site.
Also 4/7 The Florida Supreme Court hears arguments on whether 61-year-old George
Sowell —who has glaucoma and takes nausea-producing medication to prevent the
rejection of a transplanted kidney— is entitled to a necessity defense. “I’m
a law-abiding man,” says Sowell, “but I’m not going to sit here and go blind.
It kills the sickness so I can eat and I can see.”
April 10 Beloved Mary Rathbun —Brownie Mary— dies at Laguna
Honda nursing home in San Francisco at age 77. Her three arrests for
distributing marijuana baked goods to AIDS patients helped educate
the people of California about the medical potential of marijuana.
She helped Dennis Peron
launch the original cannabis buyers club. Beth Moore and WHO were with
her
at the end.
“I figure right now she’s making a deal with God. ‘God, if you let me in,
I’ll make you a dozen brownies on the house.’” —Dennis
Peron.
April 12 “Today I was in court with Robert DeArkland expecting
a
preliminary hearing, instead the district attorney dropped charges for cultivation of
13 indoor marijuana plants. Robert was a patient with a
doctors recommendation to use marijuana. I think this might be Sac
County’s first for a felony charge dropped! YEA!! YEA!! YEA!! YEA!! YEA!!
YEA!!” —Ryan Landers, reporting live from Sacramento.
• Genentech pays $50 million to settle government charges that the biotech giant
marketed human-growth hormone for unapproved uses between 1985 and ‘94. Why
is it that the government continues doing business with corporations caught in
the act of ripping off the American people? The defense companies get caught
and fined all the time, great patriots that they are.
• The U.S. government, on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry, is pressuring
poor countries into abandoning a practice called compulsory licensing that has
enabled them to buy anti-AIDS drugs. The U.S. holds the patent on ddI, a protease
inhibitor developed through federal research; but Bristol Myers Squibb is licensed
to sell the drug in Thailand and charges more than the average daily wage). ACT
UP plans a march in Washington, D.C., to expose the venal practice.
• Consolidated Growers and Processors, a U.S. company, signs a $25 million contract
to build two hemp processing plants in Manitoba, one dedicated to food and one
to fiber. At full capacity, the stalk processing plant will handle 100,000
tons per year and the seed processing plant 15 tons per year. The plants will
come on line in early 2001. The main market for the products is the U.S.,
where it’s illegal to plant the seeds!
Was the Canadian decision to legalize hemp production a success? In 1998,
27 farmers planted some 1,700 acres of hemp in Manitoba. In 1999 125 farmers
contracted with Consolidated to plant more than 12,000 acres. The gross is
almost $500 an acre. Consolidated has offered to purchase all the seed
and stalk the farmers can produce. The seeding is done in May, weather permitting,
and the harvest takes place between mid-September and early October. The
plants will be built in Dauphin, about 180 miles north of Winnipeg.
• Consolidated Growers & Processors hires renowned plant biologist Slavik
Dushenkov to head its biotechnology and seed breeding units.
April 13 In Auburn, jurors are picked in People v. Baldwin... In
San Francisco, before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, lawyers
representing the Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative dispute Judge
Breyer’s closure order. Annette Carnegie argues that Judge Breyer should
have required the government to identify members who obtained marijuana
on a given day and allowed them a jury trial (and the chance to present
a necessity defense). Gerald Uelmen argues that by deputizing the co-op
staff, the city of Oakland brought the club into compliance with the
federal Controlled Substances Act. An amicus brief by the City of Oakland
argues that the right to change the law by
popular initiative is an “unenumerated right” protected by the Ninth
Amendment.
Also 4/13 Khalid El-Amin, point guard on the University of Connecticut’s NCAA-champion
men’s basketball team, is arrested in Hartford’s North End on a misdemeanor
charge of marijuana possession. His first arrest ever. He’ll apologize
and get a day of community service speaking to school children on the evils
of drug use.
April 14 Dean Troyer, an Edmonton firefighter who admitted growing marijuana
for
medical use, is allowed to keep his job. “It doesn’t affect his job
performance,” says the department.
April 15 NIDA director Alan Leshner joins model Kathy Ireland, actress
Jaclyn Smith, singer LeAnn Rimes, driver Michael Andretti, Dallas Cowboy Deion
Sanders, and composer David Foster to kick off the NIDA-Kmart Kids Race Against
Drugs program. “This new parternship between NIDA and Kmart is a unique opportunity
to reach the nation’s youth, and the adults in their lives, with special, science-based
materials developed especially for them,” says the NIDA
chief. Attention American taxpayers:...
NIDA has made the search for addiction-predisposing genes a major goal. “We
need to be looking at genes to see whose brain is more or less susceptible
to
being changed,” says Alan Leshner. And then what are “we” going to do to them?
Warn them to be extra careful?
April 16 Merle Haggard explains why he hasn’t played Boston since 1990. New
England used to be part of his Canadian tour, but the indignity of crossing
the
border became unacceptable. “If they find a seed of marijuana in your car or
bus, they’ll run it all over the news,” Haggard told the Boston Globe. “I’ve
got 30 people working for me. There is liable to be a seed of marijuana. So it
makes it very uninviting to go into Canada, knowing that the United States is
going to harass you coming back. They snatched some buses from
people I won’t name, and buses are not cheap. It costs us seven or eight years
of our lives to pay for these buses, and they just take ‘em. Like I say, you
can’t personally shake people down that work for you. I’m not going to do that.
You don’t know who’s doing what and who isn’t but this ‘zero
tolerance’ thing they’ve got going is really amazing. They’ve got private enterprise
building prisons now. It’s scary. It’s overkill.”
April 17 the United Nations awards Tajikistan $6.4 million to combat
illicit
drug trafficking.
April 19 “Andrea Nagy of the Ventura CBC fame received a visit
at
1 p.m. They took her and her mom’s 64 plants, along with indoor growing equipment...
Andrea works for a lawyer that filed several lawsuits against local law enforcement
and it could be some sort of retaliation. She feels devastated
and violated.” —Ralph The raiding party consisted of 20 cops in full
riot gear with body armor and laser-sighted weapons. They ignored letters from
doctors confirming that the Nagys were bona fide patients. As they left, the
cops told the Nagys they would be notified by mail if charges were to be
pressed.
Also 4/19 Gen. McCaffrey, in Topeka, tells the Capital-Journal matter-of-factly
that the U.S. prison population will grow another 20 percent in the next five
years. Somebody somewhere is doing some planning...
As NATO escalates its attacks on Yugoslavia, the U.S. Air Force and the Joint
Chiefs of Staff U.S. Southern Command under Marine Crops Gen Charles Wilhelm
(McCaffrey’s successor) bicker over how many bases are needed to fight the
war on drugs south of the border. Manta, Ecuador and the Dutch Caribbean islands
of
Curacao and Aruba are favored by the Joint Chiefs. The Air Force
says it “can effectively launch counternarotics reconnaissance operations over
the entire drug source zone”from just one site,” according to Inside The
Pentagon. “Air Force refueling planes are spread thin and some fear SOUTHCOM
would get the short end of the stick when the service balances its operating
priorities.... SOUTHCOM also hopes to establish a fourth site at Liberia, Costa
Rica, although negotiations with that Central American nation are on a slower
track because of sensitivity there to a U.S. military presence... Site surveyors
estimated Manta may need in excess of $100 million in military construction alone
to be suitable for US forces.
Also 4/19, The U.S. Office for Protection From Research Risks finds that four
Los Angeles clinics run by addiction specialist Walter Ling, MD, unethically
exposed research subjects to risks. The centers are ordered to stop conducting
research on new patients. Just last year Barry McCaffrey awarded Ling
a presidential citation and NIDA gave him $4.3 million to experiment with drugs
intended to ease cravings. Ling had set up a nonprofit called Friends Research
Institute. He chaired the ethics committee that regulated the very studies
he and his colleagues were conducting. According to the feds —doing something
useful for a change— consent forms exaggerated the potential benefits of studies
while understating the risks. Others misled patients about the right to withdraw
from studies.
Also 4/19 Lawyers for Renee Boje fight her extradition from Canada.
Boje, 29, was an associate of Todd McCormick’s who moved to Vancouver rather
than face trial following the infamous Bel Air bust. In the U.S. she faces
a
minimum of 10 years if convicted. Similar charges in Canada would result
in a fine and/or a light jail sentence. “ She’s a refugee from the American war
on drugs,” argues lawyer John Conroy. Says Renee, “I am hoping that
Canada will provide me a safe haven, as it did for the conscientious objectors
to the Vietnam war.”
April 20 Robert DeArkland, a 71-year old cancer patient
with a
doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana, files a $10 million false-arrest claim
against Sacramento County. De Arkland was busted in February with 13 indoor plants.
The DA’s office dropped the charges, citing insufficient
evidence. A retired building inspector, DeArkland said that cops descended
on his residence in full riot gear, kept his teenage children from leaving for
school, and told his wife they would lose thier home. [His lawyer, Joe Farina,
is handling half a dozen medical mj cases in Sacto County.]
Also 4/20, The Arizona Supreme Court reports that a state program diverting
nonviolent drug offenders into treatment saved the state $2.5 million in its
first fiscal year of operation. Some 77 percent of probationers tested drug
free
after completing the program... Celebrex —“Monsanto’s breakthrough
superaspirin,” as the Wall St. Journal calls it— “touted as much safer than other
pain killers, has been linked to 10 deaths and 11 cases of gastrointestinal hemorrhages
in its first three months on the market.” The real number may be 10 times as
high, given the FDA’s lame reporting system.
But don’t let ‘em have any marijuana!
April 21 Judge James Garbolino requests that each side in the
People v. Michael and Georgia Baldwin submit briefs, and suspends the
trial for a week so that he can review the issues. The prosecution
had already rested. “The judge
will decide if there’s a need for the defense to present any evidence,” according
to the Baldwins’ lawyer, Larry Lichter. Disparite standards from county to county
amount to a form of discrimination, Lichter argues. “If someone who grows
146 plants in Alameda county would be innocent, why should you be guilty in Placer
County?”
• California State Sen. Hilda Solis introduces a bill whereby the government
would provide health insurance for the working poor by 2003. More than
7
million Californians are currently without coverage...
• “Major Pharmaceutical Companies Post Higher Earnings” —Headline in the Wall
St. Journal. Johnson & Johnson up 12% from last year. Schering-Plough up
20%. SmithKline Cheecham up 16%... In San Francisco, a Superior Court judge
approves a settlement under which major drug companies will provide $148 million
worth of drugs free to nonprofit clinics in compensation for years of overcharging
independent pharmacies. (In an egregious example, HMOs paid $1.75 for 100 tablets
of Synthroid, while independents paid $27.06.) Marin druggist Fred Mayer,
who spearheaded the suit, says that under the settlement the drug companies will
be unloading drugs they want to get rid off instead of providing ones poor people
need. Is there a more evil industry?
April 21 As Celebrex sales dip in response to news of occasionally fatal
side effects, Merck’s Vioxx —a drug of the same type— gets okayed by an FDA
advisory panel. The competition is even deadlier. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory
drugs —NSAIDS such as ibuprofen and aspirin— are associated with 10,000 to
20,000 deaths a year and 100,000 hospitalizations.)
Also 4/21 JAMA publishes a major study showing that eating an egg a day
does not increase the risk of coronary heart disease or stroke. Several generations
of Americans were warned otherwise by the medical establishment. Did you hear
any mea culpas?
April 22 At the Mendocino County sheriff’s office in Ukiah, Christopher
Brown picks up a half pound of stale marijuana confiscated after a 1997 raid
on his house. “It’s the first time a person has walked out of a police station
with marijuana legally in their hands,” comments attorney Hannah Nelson, who
won the case... In Switzerland a government panel recommends legalizing
the sale and use of marijuana. Purchasers would have to prove they live in
Switzerland.
April 23 The U.S. Supreme Court considers the Clinton administration’s
appeal to let the FDA control tobacco sales (on the grounds that cigarettes
are medical devices that deliver a drug, nicotine). An appeals court had ruled
that the FDA would be usurping congressional authority. The 1938 Food, Drug
and
Cosmetic Act gave the FDA jurisdiction over drugs and “devices,” both defined
as items “intended to affect the structure or any function of the
body.” In 1996 the FDA decided —after confirming that manufacturers added
nicotine to cigarets to promote addiction— that cigarets were subject to regulation
as drug-deliverers.
Also 4/23 McCaffrey tells the nation’s top ad execs at that if the anti-drug
ad campaign succeeds, the federal government will boost funding for
other “social marketing programs.” The government has hired a “scientific
survey firm” to query 20,000 children and parents to assess the
campaign’s progress.
April 25 The FDA approves Xenical, a new anti-obseity drug marketed by
Hoffman-LaRoche. It blocks the absorption of fat in the intestine and
the
absorption of vitamins A, D, E and K, as well as beta-carotene —so patients must
take vitamin supplements. It causes diarrhea, flatulence, bloating, “loose stools” and “fecal
incontinence.” A one-month’s supply costs
$116. Although recommended only for obesity, it will be prescribed by doctors
to people wishing to lose a few pounds.
But don’t let ‘em have any marijuana!
April 26 Dion Markgraff and Steve McWilliams get probation and community service
after promising not to distribute marijuana. Markgraff vows to found a political
party... The Libertarian Party of California launches a website —www.215Now.com— to
publicize the disimplementation of Prop 215 and the
Kubby case.
April 27 Paul Rofe, South Australia’s chief prosecutor, says that the prohibition
of cannabis results in young people getting to know dealers who may then turn
them on to hard drugs... Robert DuPont, who headed the DEA when they were trying
to eradicate marijuana with Paraquat in the late ‘70s, spins the IOM
Report in a misleading op-ed piece in the Washington Post. DuPont falsely asserts
that a medicine must “show superiority” over existing treatments to gain FDA
approval. In fact, a new drug must show superiority over a placebo in clinical
trials.
DION: WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE PARTY AND ‘CANNABIS UNIVERSITY?”
April 28 The Colorado Court of Appeals grants Laura Kriho a
new trial. In 1994 Kriho was the lone holdout on a jury that would
have convicted a 19-year-old woman of amphetamine possession. Kriho
was then convicted of
contempt because she hadn’t revealed during jury selection that she had a record
(for LSD possession at age 19) and worked for reform of the drug laws. The
appeals court ruled 2-1 that the jury’s right to secrecy had been
violated.
April 29 “We have just received a report that Judge Garbolino
has dismissed the cultivation charges against the Baldwins. The judge
ruled that the Baldwins are protected by the Compassionate Use Act,
but must still stand trial on the charge of sales. Since there is no
direct evidence of sales in the Baldwin case, this is a great victory
for them.” —Jeff Jones.
“The jury hung 6 to 6 on Dr. Baldwin and 5 to 7 favoring acquittal for
Mrs. Baldwin. Jurors said that if they had seen the six tubs of cannabis butter,
they would have acquitted.” [email protected] PLEASE AMPLIFY
Also 4/29 In Oregon, House Speaker Lynn Sondgrass (a Republican
from Boring) squashes a bill by Floyd Prozanski (Democrat from Eugene)
that would allow Oregon farmers to grow hemp... The New York Times
reveals that New Jersey state troopers have for years enlisted hotel
managers and employees to report
suspected “drug traffickers.” Among the tell-tale traits: speaking Spanish and
asking for a corner room. The program is based on similar ones run by the
feds and the LAPD. Troopers routinely review credit card receipts and registration
forms without warrants and falsify the source of their evidence when cases came
to court.
April 30 In Seattle, patients whose doctors are afraid
to recomend marijuana in writing, publicize their situation by lining
up at
Harborview Medical Center’s HIV/AIDS clinic, where semi-retired psychiatrist
Francis Podrebarac, is willing to do so. Thomas Hooton, the
clinic’s medical director, says the recently passed medical marijuana
initiative “didn’t clarify anything for us.” Harborview and the University
of Washington have a task force creating guidelines for doctors. Doctors in the
Veterans Administration hospital system have been advised by legal counsel not
to recommend marijuana.
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police endorse a call from the nation’s police chiefs
to “decriminalize” possession of 30-grams-or-less of marijuana. First-time offenders
could be ticketed, fined and spared a rap sheet entry. Professor Alan Young
isn’t impressed. “De facto criminalization is not an effective way to deal with
the issue,” he says. “It’s a smoke screen to
block serious law reform.” A report by Toronto Public Health finds
that 19 percent of students and 13% of adults report past-year reefer use.
“De facto criminalization is not an effective way to deal with the
issue,” says professor Alan Young. “It’s a smoke screen to block serious
law reform.”
Also in April A phlebotomist is caught washing and
reusing disposable needles at a SmithKline Beecham lab in Palo Alto.
The media are shocked to learn that phlebotomists earn $8 to $12 an
hour, and that the job
requires only 10 hours of training... Public health advocates ask
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to notify the two million Americans
who received radiation treatments in the ‘50s and ‘60s to treat chronic sinus
infections that they’re at risk for nasopharyngeal cancer. The CDC says the relevant
studies aren’t statistically significant... Elena Kouri and colleagues
at Harvard report in the journal Psychopharmacology that heavy users of marijuana
become more aggressive when they go off it. Alan Leshner, director of NIDA,
plugs the study in a press release: “People addicted to marijuana may continue
to use the drug at least partly to prevent
the onset of withdrawal symptoms,” according to Leshner...
Thomas Wang and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital report in the
journal Circulation that advertising induces doctors to prescribe calcium blockers
and ACE inhibitors for high blood pressure over cheaper beta-blockers
and diuretics. “Physicians who have been surveyed claim that adverising has little
effect on their practice patterns, but common sense suggests that pharmaceutical
companies would not spend the money they do if they didn’t have evidence of its
effectiveness. Calcium channel blockers were the most heavily advertised medication
of any type during 1996.”
May 1 The Oregon Health Division announces plans to charge $150 for
cards exempting medical marijuana users and their caregivers from state
laws against possession and cultivation of mj. Health officials expect
about 500 people to
register —generating $75,000 in revenue. The program, with one full-time employee
(Kelly Paige, coordinator), will have an annual budget of $105,000. Paige’s
office has received 105 requests for cards since the election... The last May
Day of the millenium is celebrated at pro-marijuana marches in major
cities. “It’s time to end the war against us and all living things,” says Megan
Davies of Santa Cruz...
The American Journal of Epidemiology publishes a major study by Johns Hopkins
investigators who found “strong evidence of the absence of a longterm residual
effect of cannabis use on cognition.” They administered a standard mental
exam to 1,318, people and then did follow-up exams 12 to 15 years later. Cognition
declines with aging without reference to marijuana use, they concluded. The
researchers found no male-female differences and no differences between light
and heavy users.
May 3 Fox’s show “World Wildest Police Videos” stages chases and other
confrontations that viewers think are real, according to an expose aired
on “Inside Edition.” A recent fake episode showed a boat chase in which two gun-wielding
officers shout at suspected drug runners, “Get on the boat! Get on the deck of
the boat! Face down...” Narrator John Bunnell (a former Portland Sheriff) then
says that the “suspects” are in “custody,” and that 20 pounds of marijuana they
tossed overboard has been found. “These
smugglers won’t be seeing the 20 pounds again, but they will be looking at 20
years.” The deceitful show draws more than 8.3 million viewers.
Time Magazine publishes a favorable portrait of Mel Brown and the Arcata plan
(a registration card entitles the bearer to possess a half ounce or less of
dried
marijuana and up to 10 plants)... In Congress, Republican Benajmin Gilman
of New York, chairman of the House International Relations committee, bemoans
the loss of Howard Air Force Base in Panama, “the crown jewel in our fight against
drugs.” (The U.S. flew 2,000 “counter-drug missions” a year out of
Howard.)
May 6 Dennis Peron has been offered a deal, via attorney David Nick:
plead guilty to misdemeanor distribution (in connection with running the San
Francisco cannabis buyers club, which might move six to eight lbs in a day),
and accept a
year’s probation, during which time he could use marijuana. Dennis is reluctant
to accept because 1, “It’s saying Dan Lungren was right in some
way.” And 2, a trial would be a way for the movement to regain some of the momentum
it has lost under Zimmerman, to reassert radical leadership and
goals... Lockyer’s Task Force holds its fourth meeting in Sacramento to discuss
the content of a bill that’s supposed to facilitate the implementation of Prop
215... Gen Barry McCaffrey, on National Prayer Day, declares “Never before in
our nation’s history has it been more important to pray for our
young people.”
Also 5/6, In Toronto, Judge Harry LaForme characterizes as “patently unfair” a
new government process by which seriously ill people can apply to use
marijuana. (LaForme had ruled in ‘98 that AIDS patient Jim Wakeford’s right
to alleviate pain were violated by the Controlled Drug and Substances
Act.) As part of the application process, Wakeford was asked to name his
supplier; Wakeford refused .“I can’t believe the cruelty of this
government,” says Wakeford. “They’ve been hoping that I’d croak along the way...
I’m sick. I’m scared. I need help, not harassment.” LaForme grants Jim
Wakeford an interim exemption from prosecution and Health Minister Allan Rock
says he’ll let it stand. Some 20 Canadians with chronic or terminal illnesses
have applied for exemptions to date.
• Susan Eastman of Tampa’s Weekly Planet reports that prison labor netted $81
million for Florida’s Prison Rehabilitation Industrustries and Diversified Enterprises,
Inc., in ‘98. “We are suggesting that companies taking a look at offshore labor
look at us first,” she quotes a PRIDE spokesman. “We kind of have a Third World
inside our prisons.” Eastman is one of several first-rate journalists exposing
the significance of the war on drugs. Alan Bock of the Orange County Register
and Peter King of the Sacramento Bee have also
been consistently sharp.
• Michigan becomes the first state to force Welfare applicants to pass a drug
test in order to receive financial aid.
May 10 May 10 San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown promotes a program
for seizing the cars of people soliciting drugs or prostitutes. Brown
used to be a
defense lawyer... A network of reform groups publicizes “The Effective National
Drug Control Strategy” in a four-page ad in National Review. Its
stated goal: “to make a safer and healthier America for our children, reduce
the spread of isease related to drug use, lower crime rates related to the illegal
drug market and end the racial injustice associated with current drug
policy.”
May WHAT In Tulare county, Penny and CD McKee, both of whom use mj for
medical problems, were convicted of felony cultivation for growing 43 plants. CHECK
AND AMPLIFY NBNBNBNB
May 13 Eli Lilly buys time for a half-hour infomercial pushing Prozac directly
to consumers. (Lilly expects to sell a million Prozac ‘scripts to children
under 18 this year.)...The American Medical Association releases a survey showing
that the median income of U.S. doctors in 1997 was $164,000 (meaning half earned
more, half earned less). It was the fourth straight year of slight decline,
due to managed care... James Woolsey, the former CIA director who now represents
would-be hemp producers and marketers, signs a letter in the New York Times
calling for more bombing of Yugoslavia. Other signers include “Rabbi” Michael
Lerner and “intellectual” Susan Sontag..
The FDA approves SmithKline Beecham’s Paxil for treatment of shyness, which
has been medicalized as “social phobia” or “social anxiety disorder.” SmithKline’s
CEO says that 17 million Americans suffer from this medical problem. The company
will begin its marketing drive by “educating doctors
about social phobia.” Then they’ll fund the American Psychiatric Association
and two other non-profits to buy ads comparing social phobia to “being allergic
to people.” The manufacturers of Effexor, Zoloft, and Luvox also
plan to peddle their antidepressants to shy people.
May 13 By a 15-5 vote, the Alaska Senate passes a bill requiring medical
marijuana users to register with the state —a significant weakening of the
initiative passed by voters in November by a 3-2 margin. “The idea that the
citizens didn’t know what they were doing or that legislators know best is
pretty arrogant and obnoxious,” says Democrat Johnny Ellis of Anchorage. Republican
sponsor Loren Leman worked with Alaskans for Medical Rights in
drafting a “compromise” version of his original bill. David Finkelstein of AMR
tells the Anchorage Daily News “We want the money [$58.000 to set up the registration
system]. We want the registration system. We just don’t want it
mandatory.”
“It doesn’t take away the pain, but it makes it so, in my head, the
pain
isn’t the only thing that’s there.” —Bill Kozlowski
A witness opposed to the measure, Bill Kozlowski, a 27-year-old Juneau
man
with severe hemophilia, eloquently describes the value of marijuana: “It
doesn’t take away the pain, but it makes it so, in my head, the pain isn’t the
only thing that’s there.” Kozlowski doesn’t want to register because he has no
confidence it will remain confidential and marijuana use still violates federal
law. “Why should I risk my already short and difficult life to be put on a list
that can be used againse me? Would [the legislators] want to be put on
a list for their meart medication or their diabetes
medication? I don’t think so, because it is nobody’s business.”
May 13-15 The Drug Policy Forum meets in Washington, D.C., to discuss
the state of the reform movement and whine about a slight decrease in underwriting
from Soros.
Please Mr. Soros, Mr. Soros please
Please Mr. Soros, Mr. Soros please
We’re down on our knees
And we ain’t got a dime!
May 14 Ken Hayes, director of CHAMP —the largest cannabis co-op
in
California— is busted with about 800 plants (mostly seedlings and clones) in
backyard greenhouses at his Petaluma home. Hayes had patient records on hand
to show who he was growing for. The DEA, the Sonoma County Narcotics Task Force,
and the Petaluma Police carried out the raid. They also confiscated 10 pounds
of
bud and $2, 500 cash. Hayes’s bail was set at $35,000. His lawyer, Bill Panzer
of Oakland, is trying to convince Sonoma County D.A. Mike Mullins that Ken was
growing for CHAMP’S patients —to realize their “right to obtain and use” marijuana
for medical purposes under Prop 215.
In the wake of the bust, more than 100 CHAMP patient-members offer to testify
that Hayes was growing on their behalf.
Times Reporters Shocked, Shocked
To Discover For-Profit Clinical Trials
May 16 The New York Times publishes a major piece by Gina Kolata and
Kurt Eichenwald exposing the fact that doctors who conduct clinical trials
are well remunerated by drug companies. (Anyone licensed to practice medicine
can conduct
clinical trials.) “Once clinical research was a staid enterprise primarily administered
by academic researchers... Now it is a mutibillion dollar industry, with hundreds
of testing and drug companies working with thousands of private doctors. In this
new industry, patients have become commodities, bought and traded by testing
companies...
“This new system is a boon for drug companies because it reaches out to a vast
pool of test subjects who have never before been available for experimentation...
The industry treats research agreements as corporate secrets and contractually
forbids doctors to disclose them.”
The Times piece may be part of a push by one group —the academic medical
centers— to regain market share. Which is not to say that every word of
it isn’t true. But like the recent revelations by the Guatemala Historic Truth
Commission that “we” installed and maintained murderers and torturers in power,
the belated truth, the incomplete truth, means little and simply restores a bit
of moral authority to the corrupt system.
The “problem” is not simply that doctors accept money from drug companies to
enroll patients in clinical trials (and thus have an incentive to maximize
the prospective benefits and downplay the risks in describing the trials);
equally significant is the incentive the docs have to give the companies the
results they want, i.e., that their new products are safe and effective. Common
sense suggests that a doc who would massage the entry criteria would massage
the
results. Kolata and Eichenwald did not compare the rates at which doctors
who report favorable results get rehired by the drug companies (as opposed to
those who find adverse effects). Certainly the drug companies are monitoring
the enrollment rates very carefully.
May 17 Part two of the Times exposé focuses entirely on one doctor, a
driven internist practicing in Whittier, CA, who skewed countless clinical
trials, pressured employees into complicity, seriously jeopardized patients,
and was eventually sentenced to 15 months in jail. The implication is that
the system is subject to abuse because the drug companies and the government
do a very lax job of monitoring the docs conducting clinical trials. As if
the answer
is tighter regulation...
Some highlights
• “Doctors who recruit the most patients receive additional perquisites, such
as the right to claim a coveted authorship of published papers about the studies
-even though the truth author is a ghost writer using an analysis from the drug
company. Those who fail to meet the recruitment goals are usually dropped from
future studies.” This shows how carefully the companies are keeping tabs on the
docs, and that they’re operating on the carrot-and-stick
model.
• “Testing companies often use doctors as clinical invetigators regardless of
their specialty, at times leaving patients in the care of doctors who know little
about their condition.”
• “What the patients are not seeing is that the clinical investigator is really
a dual agent with divided loyalties between the patient and the pharmaceutical
company.”
—Dr.
David Shinn
• “The patient is an object to make money. Having patients is just the dirty
price for doing business.” -Dr. Robert M. Califf, director of the Duke Clinical
Reseach Institute, on the attitude of the drug companies towards
clinical research.
• “Doctors with money at stake may persuade patients to take drugs that are inappropriate
or even unsafe. Under the current system of monitoring, such actions are almost
impossible to catch and no statistics are collected on such
events.”
• Nurses and assistants in the doctors’ offices function as “study
coordinators” and also get bonuses for signing up patients.
Murray Lumpkin, deputy director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research
at the FDA sees no distinction between block grants for university research
and
paying doctors directly.
• “The assumption that doctors can resist financial temptations has been proved
wrong repeatedly in other situations... Throughout much of the 1980s, doctors
could refer patients to treatment centers —such as physical or radiation therapy
sites— in which they had a stake. The practice was outlawed after studies found
that doctors were overusing treatment and tests when they had financial interests
in the centers that provided them. A 1992 study published in the New England
Journal of Medicine found that doctors with investments in radiation sites prescribed
such treatment as much as 60 percent more often than those without the financial
conflict.
• For decades drug companies “turned to a trusted group of medical school researchers
who dictated how trials were conducted. And the drug companies had to wait in
line: Research financed by Government grants was far more prestigious; in the
eyes of many academics, drug-company trials were to research
what McDonald’s hamburgers were to food.
“In those days... payments went to the university, not to the investigator. The
university doctors were often paid a flat fee for their work, no matter how many
patients they actually enrolled.”
In the ’90s companies began rushing drug development, aided by FDA reforms
that speeded up the approval process. Academic researchers conducted
more
trials but lost market share to private-practice docs entering the business.
In 1980, in Tucson, there were eight drug research projects, all but two at
hospitals affiliated with the university of Arizona. In 1997 there were 157
being conducted in offices around the city.
“Now, with federally financed research on the wane, it is the academic researchers
who are banging on the doors of the drug companies, asking for a
second chance. But they are finding it hard to keep up with the private
doctors.” Some academic med centers are setting up their own research divisions
to draw on their patients for trials.
• Seventy percent of the docs conducting drug studies in the ’90s had been involved
in three or fewer previous studies, i.e., were new to the whole process. A quarter
had conducted only one experiment.
May 17 The Alaska House approves the bill forcing medical marijuana users
to register. “Bill sponsor Sen. Loren Leman said it draws a bright line for
police so that they can enforce the law against recreational use of
marijuana.” —the Anchorage Daily News. David Finkelstein of AMR urges patients
to register... The House also passes a proposed constitutional amendment that
would make it harder to get voter initiatives on the ballot.
May 18 The Illinois House votes 78-35 to study the feasibility of legalizing
industrial hemp.
May 19 A jury in Santa Monica Superior Court convicts Joe “Hemp” Kidwell,
a motorcycle mechanic/marijuana activist, for growing 14 plants on the roof
of his Venice office building. Orthopedist Fred Hakmet testified that he recommended
Kidwell use marijuana for arthritis and chronic back pain. The jury found no
evidence that Kidwell intended to sell marijuana. Defense lawyer Seymour Friedman
calls the verdict “illogical” and says he’ll appeal.
“I was not fired for what I did at work. I was fired for what I did
on my own time. What this tells me is everybody can be tested. If my
job was safety
sensitive, there’s not a job in the world that’s not safety sensitive.”
—Ron
Smith
Also 5/19An appeals court rules against a ditch tender fired by the
Fresno Irrigation District after flunking a drug test. Ron Smith had
been awarded $240,000 after a jury found that his privacy had been
violated; but the judges
decided that random testing was “justified by the hazards inherent in
plaintiff’s employment.” Smith’s comment: “This is a bad blow for the people
of this country. A free country? It’s disgusting, disgusting. I was not fired
for what I did at work. I was fired for what I did on my own time. What this
tells me is everybody can be tested. If my job was safety sensitive,
there’s not a job in the world that’s not safety sensitive.”
B.E.Smith Verdict:
Prop 215 Doesn’t Count
May 19-21 BE Smith is tried in federal court in Sacramento on charges of possession
and “manufacturing” of marijuana. Smith was busted in the summer of 1997 for
growing 87 plants on land rented from a friend inTrinity County. After
his lawyers unsuccessfully ask Judge Garland E. Burrell, Jr., to recuse himself,
Smith testifies that experiences during the Vietnam war caused him to start
using marijuana; that he subsequently used it as an alternative to alcohol;
and that he was growing for himself and others, as sanctioned by Prop 215.
Woody Harrelson testifying as a character witness for Smith (whom he met during
protests to save the Headwaters Forest) accuses Judge Burrell of “keeping the
truth from the jury” by refusing to let Smith cite Prop 215 or medical necessity
in his defense. After the jury gives its verdict —guilty on both counts— Burrell
orders Smith taken into custody immediately. Smith is led away amidst exclamations
of “We love you, dad,” and “You’re
a free man.” Sentencing will be August 6 in Department 10 at the federal
courthouse, 5th and I Street, Sacto...
May 20 Two multinational drug companies — Hoffman-LaRoche and
BASF— admit fixing the prices of vitamins A, B2 (riboflavin), B5, C,
E and beta carotene, and settle with the U.S. Justice Dept for $725
million. (Another member of the cartel, Rhone Poulenc Rorer, cooperated
with the prosecution so as not to delay a pending $22 billion merger
with Hoechst A.G.) Top corporate execs held secret annual meetings
to set precise production quotas, prices, and distribution channels;
yet the Roche CEO and chairman have the gall to feign surprise. (By
a strange coincidence, Roche was fined $14 million in 1997 fixing the
price of citric acid and lysine.) Why doesn’t the government just stop
doing business with companies that cheat the public? Corruption really
is endemic. The government lawyers occasionally impose some slap on
the wrist, the companies give back pennies on the dollars they ripped
off from the public, the
media act as if it’s all very significant (“a new record settlement”), and the
system grinds grimly on.
Also May 20 David Teatsworth of Tacoma is arrested for growing
157
indoor plants intended for 11 Green Cross Co-op patients. “We had passed
a law. I thought everything was okay. I am not a criminal,” says Teatsworth from
Pierce County jail. “I had the paperwork. The Green Cross lawyers told me everything
was legal because I was acting as a caregiver for the 11 people.” Charles
Grisim of Green Cross confirms that the patients’ co-op had arranged with Teatsworth
to grow the plants: “We’ve got an imbalance in the number of sick people
who can grow marijuana and the number who need it.” But Pierce County Prosecutor
John Ladenburg says the initiative doesn’t allow an individual to be caregiver
for more than one person. And the initiative’s main backer, Dr. Rob Killian of
AMR, agrees with the prosecutor. “The law clearly contemplates one person
growing marijuana for one other person,” says
Killian. “If Green Cross is claiming otherwise, then they’re wrong.”
May 20 Researchers from Cornell University report in Nature
that corn genetically altered to produce a pesticide is producing windborne
pollen that
can kill Monarch butterflies and other insects. The pest-resistant corn
is being planted on an estimated 10 to 20 million acres in the U.S. this year.
It carries a gene from a bacterium that kills corn borers. (God forbid the American
consumer should find a little worm at the end of an ear of corn, and have to
cut
it off the way grandma had to...) Monarch caterpillars feed exclusively
on the leaves of milkweed, which grows in and around cornfieds throughout the
Midwest. About half the monarchs that migrate through the cornbelt. “Nobody
had considered this before,” Dr. Fred Gould, insect ecologist at North
Carolina State University, tells the New York Times. “Should we be concerned?
Yes.”
“Nobody had considered this before”
—Dr.
Fred Gould
We’re concerned that nobody had considered this before. How could
they not?
According to the Times, “Representatives from Novartis Agribusiness Biotechnology,
Monsanto and Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., the top sellers of Bt corn,
challenged the signifiance of the findings.” Undoubtedly
they’ll fund their own studies so that they can cite “contradictory
results” and keep on pumping out the poison.
Winners and Sinners: The Times plays the piece on page 1 and devotes an editorial
to it; but the lead contains this doubly misleading line— “Transgenic crops
have proved tremendously popular with American farmers in
recent years.” Monsanto et al create tremendous financial incentives to
push genetically altered crops; and the farms’ corporate owners are not the ones
out there in the field.
Also 5/20 Great piece by Michael Marciano in the Hartford Advocate
about MTV’s crude censorship around the marijuana issue. Snoop Doggy Dogg
can drink while driving and sing about it, but the line about “smokin’ Indo” gets
cut. “MTV has enforced a policy —which includes blurring out any images of pot
leaves and requiring artists to submit censored tracks— to exclude any and all
marijuana references. Guns, gangsters and prostitutes are still acceptable, of
course.” MTV is owned by Viacom, Inc.
May 21 The National Institute on Drug Abuse issues new guidelines that
will supposedly enable scientists with private grants to obtain marijuana from
the supply grown on 1.8 acres at the University of Mississippi. The DEA, the
Department of Health and Human Services, and the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy were in on drafting the guidelines. NIDA will rule on the
scientific validity of the proposed studies.
The Institute of Medicine had recommended that the federal government provide
marijuana to individual patients who would be participating in “n=1” clinical
trials, under their physicians’ supervision. The new guidelines say single-patient
studies do not “produce useful scientific information,” and “We do not foresee
that they would be supported under this program.”
Study designs will have to follow guidelines from the IOM report —which limit
the conditions for which marijuana is considered a promising treatment, limit
the duration of trials to six months, and require that subjects try all standard
medications prior to enrollment!
“We really believe this will make it much easier for research to go
forward,” says Gen. McCaffrey. “Come into my house and I will give you
gingerbread,” says HHS Secretary Donna Shalala.
NIDA’s Steve Gust says the government is trying to figure out how much to charge
for its “research-grade marijuana.” Plans call for growing the crop annually,
instead of every other year, as had been the practice in the long years of
squelched demand. At present only three studies are using Biloxi boo:
Donald Abrams’s at UCSF (weight gain in HIV patients and interaction with protease
inhibitiors); Martin et al at the Medical College of Virginia (comparing smoked
marijuana to Marinol in treating pain); and WHO at the University of Chicago
(comparing smoked mj and marinol in treating nausea).
Local Growers’ Marijuana
Far More Potent Than
Government Experts’
Dale Gieringer of California NORML notes, “The medical marijuana provided
to patients in cannabis clubs is at least three to four times medically stronger
than that legally available to researchers and patients from the federal government,
according to a potency study sponsored by California NORML and the Multidisciplinary
Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).
“The study, consisting of three rounds of testing by two different DEA-licensed
laboratories, measured the concentrations of THC and its two commonest chemical
relatives, cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabinol (CBN).
In all, 49 samples of medicinal cannabis were analyzed for potency by standard
gas chromatograph mass spectrometry. “The sample showing the lowest THC (3.9%
or less) was the government’s own marijuana, grown for NIDA to supply researchers
and eight patients. Nearly all other samples tested over 8%, with averages
in the range of 12.8% to 15.4%, and many samples above 20%. One sample of hashish
(concentrated resin) tested above 44%.
“Our study clearly shows that the underground market is producing better medical
marijuana than the U.S. government. High potency pot enables patients to inhale
less smoke for a given effective dose of THC. Based on THC content, the
clubs’ cannabis appears to deliver three to five times as much medicine per puff
of smoke than NIDA’s.
Gieringer’s study revealed that California sinsemilla contains only trace amounts
of CBD or CBN — except for one sample, which contained more than 8% CBD (a
non-psychoactive precursor of THC suspected to have anti-convulsant and anti-anxiety
properties). “
Despite the evident superiority of the medical marijuana clubs’ products,” Gieringer
points out, “They remain strictly illegal under federal law. The government
has even acted to suppress their availability by closing down clubs in California...
The findings of the potency study suggest that patients would be better off
to smoke cannabis from the clubs. It’s irresponsible to require
NIDA’s marijuana to be used in human subjects, given the availability of higher-grade
alternatives. The time has come to end NIDA’s monopoly on the
marijuana supply.”
Gieringer’s study was undertaken soon after the passage of Prop 215,
and was complicated by DEA regulations designed to prevent labs from analyzing
illicit drugs. “When it comes to marijuana research, the United States is not
a free country,” he says. “In our experience, it’s easier for kids to get high-grade
pot at school than for responsible researchers, physicians and patients to
get it legally.”
Hitler Staging for Orange Bowl Bash
“Gov. Jeb Bush signed three anti-drug bills into law Friday, May 21, at the Orange
bowl in Miami in front of thousands of cheering schoolchildren from the DARE
Program... ‘As long as you choose to stay away from drugs, everything is
at your doorstep,’ Bush told the children. ‘You can be a police officer, mayor,
governor, or even president of the United States.’ Later, the governor told reporters, ‘It’s
important for kids to know
there’s a lot of good in this world’ in the wake of the school shootings in Colorado
and Georgia.
Moments later, the children watched a phony shootout on the football field
between drug dealers and police officers. The Miami-Dade Police Special Response
Team, Miami Special Weapons and Tactics, and the Florida Highway Patrol Tactical
Response Team took on ‘bad guys.’ FBI brought out its armored personnel carrier,
a vehicle that resembles a tank with wheels. As the alleged drug dealers fell
to their deaths, the children cheered.”
Also 5/21 Janelle Bluhm, a Portland woman with multiple sclerosis, pays $150 and
obtains the first medical marijuana permit issued by the state of Oregon. The
FDA approves Merck’s Vioxx, a cox-2 inhibitor, for treating osteoarthritis
and acute pain, including menstrual cramps. Existing non-steroidal anti-inflammatories
such as aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen can cause bleeding ulcers and their
use leads to more than 107,000 hospitalizations and 16,500 deaths a year. (But
don’t let ‘em have any marijuana...) NSAIDS target two forms of an enzyme called
cyclo-oxygenase, which plays a role in inflammation but also protects the stomach
lining. (Think of your two hands as separate forms of the same structure.)
Cox-2 inhibitors target only the form of the molecule thought to cause inflammation;
thus, it is hoped, they’ll cause fewer ulcers
than NSAIDS.
“The government’s approval of Merck’s Vioxx arthritis medication sets the stage
for one of the biggest drug-industry marketing showdowns in recent
history.” —The Wall St. Journal, noting that Vioxx will compete for market share
with Celbrex, the cox-2 inhibitor introduced last year by Monsanto and
Pfizer.
May 23 A national survey in the Chronicle of Education reveals that most
drug arrests on college campuses are for marijuana possession. ASK ERIC
“Here’s an unsettling thought: A division of drug giant Merck & Co.
may soon have access to your medical diagnosis and discuss with your
doctor
which drug to prescribe —while you’re still in the examining room.”
—Elyse Tanouye in the Wall St. Journal
John Gettman Says
Scheduling Decisions Are Made
By Health and Human Services,
Not DEA or Drug Czar’s Office
The Department of Health and Human Services calls the shots when
it comes to marijuana prohibition, and the cops at DEA and the general over at
ONDCP take the heat. That’s how the process is set up, and it is amazing that
HHS gets away with it.
For example, HHS must produce a medical and scientific evaluation for any drug
subject to the scheduling process, and schedulikng is based on this document.
However, this key document is not even made available to the public —it is
only available by way of a Freedom of Information Act request. If you called
DEA today and asked to see any scheduling evaulation provided for them by HHS,
you
will be told that DEA cannot release another agency’s work product that a FOIA
request is required.
That’s another way of saying the documents are classified, or too
sensitivie for wide public circulation. However, we’re not talking about the
atomic bomb, we’re talking about evaluation s of controlled substances that determine,
in the case of marijuana, whether or not millions of pople will be subject to
criminal prosecution or not. One of the defining characteristics of scientific
output is that it is subject to public review, that it be made avialble to the
community —both other other scientists and indeed to the general public. This
example should set off alarm bells within the scientific
community —it is a procedural technicality, but procedural technicalities are
what scientific ethics are all about...
Here is the point of our petition, in a nutshell. If the federal governmentwants
to keep marijuana in schedule 1, or if they believe that placing marijuana
in
schedule 2 is a viable policy, then we’re going to cross-examine under oath and
penalty of perjury every HJHS official and scientist who claims that marijuana
use is as dangerous as the use of cocaine or heroin. Scheduling is based on scientific
analysis, not DEA policy or preference. they hide the evaluations from public
critique to obscure this fact, and to make sure that criticism of scheduling
decisions fall on DEA and not HHS. This process allows HHS to escape public accountability
for their decisions. They are not scientists at DEA. HHS findings on scientific
and medical issues are binding on DEA. So it
is fairly clear who’s in control of this process —HHS is.
Until 1988, no scientist in the world knew how marijuana caused its charactgeristic
effects. The discovery of the cannabinoid recepor system revolutionized understanding
of marijuana. Research findings from 1988 to 1994 provide the key scientific
basis for marijuana’s rescheduling. In correspondence Thomas Constantine stated
in 1995 tyhat DEA did not know of any information that would require new proc
eedings. After receiving my petition and studying it for 30 months, DEA admitted
in December 1997 that it provided sufficient grounds for the removal of marijuana
and all cannabinoid drugs from Schedules 1 and 2. It turns out that there was
sufficient information on record,
and I conclude that DEA just wasnt’ aware of its significance. After all,
they’re not scientists ove there, are they?
But they are scientists over at HHS. They knew about these new research findings;
a few of the most important were dsicovered in the labs at the Naitonal Institute
of Mental Health. Federal law requires HHS to summarize and publish marijuana
research findings every three years, yet this process ground to a halt as soon
as Donna Shalala took office as the Secretary of HHS, just as the key receptor
discoveries occurred. These discoveries were well publicized in the press and
in scientific journals, but they were never summarized in the triennial reports
to Congress and the people that are required by law.
The law also requires that marijuana have a high potential for abuse to be
a schedule 1 drug, or even a schedule 2 drug. Why, wehn it comes to marijuana,
is it okay for the federal government to ignore the laws we, the people, passed
in our democratically elected legislature? Why is it that they seek to maintain
marijuana prohbiition at any cost? At a cost to the rule of law, and at the
cost
of over 700,000 arrests per year?
Why is it that the scientists at HHS have known that marijuana does not belong
in schedule 1 or schedule 2 and have never acted to remove it? HHS can
begin proceedings itself, without waiting for an interested party to file a
petition. I suggest that one of the reasons that the rescheduling petition
is currently stalled over at HHS is that several scientists on pthe public
payroll over there are wrestling with their consciences over these very issues.
Will the loss of scientific integrity become another casualty to maintaining
marijuana
prohibition at all costs?
I predict that marijuana rescheduling will take two to five years to resolve,
depending on the ethics of the government’s scientists. If they acknowledge
that marijuana does not have the same abuse potential as heroin, than marijuana
prohibition in the United States will have to end.
Medical Efficacy Irrelevant?
The medical marijuana issue is important because therapeutic users bear the
greatest injustice... However, legally, it is only relevant if marijuana has
a
high potential for abuse. As our petition argues and as the recent Institute
of Medicine report confirms, marijuana does not have the high potential for abuse
required for schedule 1 or schedule 2 status. While public debate has shifted
to the issue of marijuana’s medical use, there has been an unprecedented increase
in arrests for marijuana posession and sales ofenses. It may very well be that
this shift in public debate has removed a historic constraint on marijuana arrests,
and that this lack of public condemnation has encouraged law enforcement to make
as many arrests for marijuana use as possible. By accepting medical use as the
primary reference point for debate, the reform movement implies that we are willing
to concede the legal validity of
the federal government’s interpretation of the Controlled Substances Act. Surely,
this has not been the intent of the reform movement...
The federal government of the United States won’t follow the law when it comes
to marijuana’s regulation, and they never have. That’s it. That’s the
problem.
May 24 Indomitable Grant Krieger, a multiple sclerosis patient on
probation for distributing medical marijuana, announces plans to start
a cannabis club in Calgary. Krieger says he has stopped visiting his
probation officer because “Society doesn’t have the right to tell me
how to heal my body or what I may
or may not use in the process...” In Vancouver, Hemp B.C. and the Cannabis Cafe
are about to close, forced out of business by the city council.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denies a U.S. request to use Venezuela’s airspace
for anti-narcotics flights. Watch your back, Hugo... Pharmacia & Upjohn
seeks FDA approval of a new antidepressant called Reboxetine, that increases
levels of norepinephrine in the brain. A corporate researcher says, “By adding
vitality and color in an otherwise gray life, we can make a real difference
for a lot of people.” Sounds like the ad campaign is already on
the drawing boards. Reboxetine is said to have “the same level of
side effects” as Prozac. In other words, frequent and signficant... Thomas Constantine
announces that he will retire as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Constantine reportedly protested the Clinton Admini-stration’s certification
of Mexico as a fully cooperating partner in the War on Drugs. As Administrator
Constantine added more than 1,100 agents, raising the agency’s total to more
than 9,000 employees.
May 26 Outrageous conduct by a DEA agent is the subject of a
hearing in federal court in San Francisco called by Judge Susan Illston
to review the 1997
bust of John Dalton for “marijuana production.” DEA Special Agent Mark Nelson
seduced Dalton’s mentally ill wife, a longtime cop wannabe, telling her she was
an agent of the DEA, even assigning her a “special agent number” which is refered
to in over 30 internal reports. She then taped him —even putting a recorder under
their bed
Dalton, a mechanic with no criminal record, has been in federal prison in Dublin
for two years. He is represented by Tony Serra, who moved that the case be
dismissed. “The DEA can’t have it both ways,” writes Mark Heimann, who has
tracked the case for the Anderson Valley Advertiser. “If she was an agent,
the
evidence she gathered was obtained illegally. If she’s not an agent, the information
she gathered and turned over to Nelson was probably gathered illegally. Either
way, whatever evidence against Mr. Dalton was obtained by recording devices buried
in the marital bower, it is protected by marital privlege, and as such, should
be tossed, gutting the core of the government’s
case.”
May 30 The SF Chronicle runs a long piece about California in the ’90s
that doesn’t mention the medical marijuana movement. A graphic timeline lists
former Mayor Frank Jordan’s publicity-stunt-shower as a major event, but not
the passage of Prop 215.
Also in May Canada’s health department has received some 750 applications from
farmers who want to grow hemp and approved more than two-thirds of them —including
25 who will be growing for research purposes... Great piece in the Sacramento
Bee by M.S. Enkoji about a black student-athlete from St. Louis attending Lassen
Junior College in California; he was entrapped by a female narc who offered
him sex and badgered him for marijuana. He sold her 2.1 grams and is now facing
five years. He rejected diversion. “I would lose any chance of going into the
armed services or getting financial aid for school,” he
explained.