Action Alert

Readers of The Wall Street Journal today will find a headline and article which would have seemed unlikely last year even after the election. The Wall Street Journal competes with USA today for the top U.S. circulation spot with a circulation of over two million copies. The newspaper reaches an audience which is more influential. Articles and opinion items which question the war on drugs appear to be increasing as may be seen at http://www.mapinc.org/source/Wall+Street+Journal News items about our new drug czar are found at http://www.mapinc.org/people/Kerlikowske Both are worthy targets for your letters to the editor. ********************************************************************** Page: A3 Copyright: 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Contact: [email protected] Author: Gary Fields WHITE HOUSE CZAR CALLS FOR END TO 'WAR ON DRUGS' Kerlikowske Says Analogy Is Counterproductive; Shift Aligns With Administration Preference for Treatment Over Incarceration WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting "a war on drugs," a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use. In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation's drug issues. "Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country." Mr. Kerlikowske's comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate -- and likely more controversial -- stance on the nation's drug problems. Prior administrations talked about pushing treatment and reducing demand while continuing to focus primarily on a tough criminal-justice approach. The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment's role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said. Already, the administration has called for an end to the disparity in how crimes involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine are dealt with. Critics of the law say it unfairly targeted African-American communities, where crack is more prevalent. The administration also said federal authorities would no longer raid medical-marijuana dispensaries in the 13 states where voters have made medical marijuana legal. Agents had previously done so under federal law, which doesn't provide for any exceptions to its marijuana prohibition. During the presidential campaign, President Barack Obama also talked about ending the federal ban on funding for needle-exchange programs, which are used to stem the spread of HIV among intravenous-drug users. The drug czar doesn't have the power to enforce any of these changes himself, but Mr. Kerlikowske plans to work with Congress and other agencies to alter current policies. He said he hasn't yet focused on U.S. policy toward fighting drug-related crime in other countries. Mr. Kerlikowske was most recently the police chief in Seattle, a city known for experimenting with drug programs. In 2003, voters there passed an initiative making the enforcement of simple marijuana violations a low priority. The city has long had a needle-exchange program and hosts Hempfest, which draws tens of thousands of hemp and marijuana advocates. Seattle currently is considering setting up a project that would divert drug defendants to treatment programs. Mr. Kerlikowske said he opposed the city's 2003 initiative on police priorities. His officers, however, say drug enforcement -- especially for pot crimes -- took a back seat, according to Sgt. Richard O'Neill, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. One result was an open-air drug market in the downtown business district, Mr. O'Neill said. "The average rank-and-file officer is saying, 'He can't control two blocks of Seattle, how is he going to control the nation?' " Mr. O'Neill said. Sen. Tom Coburn, the lone senator to vote against Mr. Kerlikowske, was concerned about the permissive attitude toward marijuana enforcement, a spokesman for the conservative Oklahoma Republican said. [drug war] Others said they are pleased by the way Seattle police balanced the available options. "I think he believes there is a place for using the criminal sanctions to address the drug-abuse problem, but he's more open to giving a hard look to solutions that look at the demand side of the equation," said Alison Holcomb, drug-policy director with the Washington state American Civil Liberties Union. Mr. Kerlikowske said the issue was one of limited police resources, adding that he doesn't support efforts to legalize drugs. He also said he supports needle-exchange programs, calling them "part of a complete public-health model for dealing with addiction." Mr. Kerlikowske's career began in St. Petersburg, Fla. He recalled one incident as a Florida undercover officer during the 1970s that spurred his thinking that arrests alone wouldn't fix matters. "While we were sitting there, the guy we're buying from is smoking pot and his toddler comes over and he blows smoke in the toddler's face," Mr. Kerlikowske said. "You go home at night, and you think of your own kids and your own family and you realize" the depth of the problem. Since then, he has run four police departments, as well as the Justice Department's Office of Community Policing during the Clinton administration. Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that supports legalization of medical marijuana, said he is "cautiously optimistic" about Mr. Kerlikowske. "The analogy we have is this is like turning around an ocean liner," he said. "What's important is the damn thing is beginning to turn." James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest law-enforcement labor organization, said that while he holds Mr. Kerlikowske in high regard, police officers are wary. "While I don't necessarily disagree with Gil's focus on treatment and demand reduction, I don't want to see it at the expense of law enforcement. People need to understand that when they violate the law there are consequences." ********************************************************************** PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches. To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides ********************************************************************** Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org === . DrugSense provides many services at no charge, but they are not free to produce. Your contributions make DrugSense and its Media Awareness Project (MAP) happen. Please donate today. Our secure Web server at http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm accepts credit cards and Paypal. Or, mail your check or money order to: DrugSense 14252 Culver Drive #328 Irvine, CA 92604-0326. (800) 266 5759

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #402 - Monday, 11 May 2009 Last Wednesday morning the readers of the The Sacramento Bee were treated to the front page article, below. Since then the press articles and editorial page content have been slowly increasing. The items can be accessed at http://www.mapinc.org/people/Schwarzenegger. The news clippings are worthy of letters to the editor. As this is sent the largest California newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, has not mentioned Governor Schwarzenegger' comments. Thus a message to the newspaper may also be appropriate. See http://drugsense.org/url/bc7El3Yo for contact details. ********************************************************************** GOVERNOR ASKS: WHAT IF POT'S LEGAL AND TAXED? As California struggles to find cash, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday it's time to study whether to legalize and tax marijuana for recreational use. The Republican governor did not support legalization - and the federal government still bans marijuana use - but advocates hailed the fact that Schwarzenegger endorsed studying a once-taboo political subject. "Well, I think it's not time for ( legalization ), but I think it's time for a debate," Schwarzenegger said. "I think all of those ideas of creating extra revenues, I'm always for an open debate on it. And I think we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana and other drugs, what effect did it have on those countries?" Schwarzenegger was at a fire safety event in Davis when he answered a question about a recent Field Poll showing 56 percent of registered voters support legalizing and taxing marijuana to raise revenue for cash-strapped California. Voters in 1996 authorized marijuana for medical purposes. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, has written legislation to allow the legal sale of marijuana to adults 21 years and older for recreational use. His Assembly Bill 390 would charge cannibis wholesalers initial and annual flat fees, while retailers would pay $50 per ounce to the state. The proposal would ban cannibis near schools and prohibit smoking marijuana in public places. Marijuana legalization would raise an estimated $1.34 billion annually in tax revenue, according to a February estimate by the Board of Equalization. That amount could be offset by a reduction in cigarette or alcohol sales if consumers use marijuana as a substitute. Besides raising additional tax revenue, the state could save money on law enforcement costs, Ammiano believes. But he shelved the bill until next year because it remains controversial in the Capitol, according to his spokesman, Quintin Mecke. "We're certainly in full agreement with the governor," Mecke said. "I think it's a great opportunity. I think he's also being very realistic about understanding sort of the overall context, not only economically but otherwise." Schwarzenegger previously has shown a casual attitude toward marijuana. He was filmed smoking a joint in the 1977 film, "Pumping Iron." And he told the British version of GQ in 2007, "That is not a drug. It's a leaf." Spokesman Aaron McLear downplayed the governor's comment as a joke at the time. Even if California were to legalize marijuana, the state would hit a roadblock with the federal government, which prohibits its use. Ammiano hopes for a shift in federal policy, but President Barack Obama said in March he doesn't think legalization is a good strategy. Any study would find plenty of arguments, judging by responses Tuesday. Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, said he's open to a study, but he remains opposed to legalization. He warned that society could bear significant burdens. He downplayed enforcement and incarceration savings because he believes drug courts are already effective in removing low-level offenders from the system. "Studies have shown there is impairment with marijuana use," DeVore said. "People can get paranoid, can lose some of their initiative to work, and we don't live in some idealized libertarian society where every person is responsible completely to himself. We live in a society where the cost of your poor decisions are borne by your fellow taxpayers." But Bruce Merkin of the Marijuana Policy Project said studies show alcohol has worse effects on users than marijuana in terms of addiction and long-term effects. His group believes marijuana should be regulated and taxed just like alcoholic beverages. "There are reams of scientific data that show marijuana is less harmful than alcohol," Merkin said. "Just look at the brain of an alcoholic. In an autopsy, you wouldn't need a microscope to see the damage. Marijuana doesn't do anything like that." Schwarzenegger said he would like to see results from Europe as part of a study. The Austrian parliament last year authorized cultivation of medical marijuana. But Schwarzenegger talked with a police officer in his hometown of Graz and found the liberalization was not fully supported, McLear said. "It could very well be that everyone is happy with that decision and then we could move to that," Schwarzenegger said. "If not, we shouldn't do it. But just because of raising revenues ... we have to be careful not to make mistakes at the same time." ********************************************************************** PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list ( [email protected] ) if you are subscribed. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches. To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides ********************************************************************** Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org === . DrugSense provides many services at no charge, but they are not free to produce. Your contributions make DrugSense and its Media Awareness Project (MAP) happen. Please donate today. Our secure Web server at http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm accepts credit cards and Paypal. Or, mail your check or money order to: DrugSense 14252 Culver Drive #328 Irvine, CA 92604-0326 (800) 266 5759 . DrugSense is a 501c(3) non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about the expensive, ineffective, and destructive "War on Drugs." Donations are tax deductible to the extent provided by law.

Dear Friends, On Thursday, April 23, thousands of people across the country will phone their members of Congress to call for an end to the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. We hope that you will mark your calendar and join us. Your calls will make an important difference. The National Call-In Day is part of Crack the Disparity National Month of Advocacy, a month-long coordinated push to eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. The current law: • overstates the relative danger of crack cocaine compared to powder cocaine; • contributes to the growth of our prison population, increasing the financial burden on taxpayers; • disproportionately affects African Americans; and • uses limited federal resources on low-level street dealers rather than on the major drug traffickers. Twenty-three years of a failed policy is long enough! It's time to end this unjust and disproportionate sentencing policy. To participate, mark your calendar for April 23, call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202.224.3121, and ask to speak to your representatives in the Senate and House. Urge them to support and co-sponsor H.R. 265, the Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act in the House and legislation in the Senate that eliminates the 100 to 1 disparity between crack and powder cocaine. You should place three calls because you have one representative and two senators. Use this link (talking points and script) to help you with your calls to Congress: http://sentencingproject.org/AdvocacyMaterialDetails.aspx?AdvocacyMaterialID=117 - The Sentencing Project

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #399 - Monday, 6 April 2009 Today over a million folks living in Michigan became eligible to apply for permission to use medicinal marijuana. It is the first day that the state Bureau of Health Professions at the Michigan Department of Community Health will accept applications. Michigan becomes the second largest state and the first in the heartland to have a medicinal marijuana program. Called the Michigan Medical Marihuana Program (MMMP) by the state, application forms and details are on line at http://www.michigan.gov/mdch/0,1607,7-132-27417_51869---,00.html In a vote last November, 63 percent of the state's voters said yes to medical marijuana. The initiative won in every single county in the state. Many police in the state are not happy. George Basar, president of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police http://www.michiganpolicechiefs.org/ , predicts the law will ignite widespread marijuana abuse as stated in this article http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n353/a02.html Others are accepting the new reality. For example, the Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton met Friday with advocates as shown in this article http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n388/a04.html We are starting to see calls for improvements in the law like this editorial calling for better ways for patients to obtain their medicine http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n385/a02.html The Constitution of Michigan states that "no law adopted by the people at the polls under the initiative provisions of this section shall be amended or repealed, except by a vote of the electors unless otherwise provided in the initiative measure or by three-fourths of the members elected to and serving in each house of the legislature." The law does not provide for change by the state legislature. Perhaps in the future the three-fourths needed will vote to improved the law as the above editorial asks. Any change which would undermine the law is not likely. Michigan's law sends a strong message to elected and appointed officials at all levels of government that marijuana is medicine - a message you may help send, also. Most news clippings about the law and the various issues involved may be accessed at http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Michigan+Medical+Marijuana In Michigan the people have spoken. It will be interesting to see how the press covers the issue in Michigan in the months ahead just as it is in the other states with medicinal marijuana laws. ********************************************************************** Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org === . DrugSense provides many services at no charge, but they are not free to produce. Your contributions make DrugSense and its Media Awareness Project (MAP) happen. Please donate today. Our secure Web server at http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm accepts credit cards and Paypal. Or, mail your check or money order to: . DrugSense 14252 Culver Drive #328 Irvine, CA 92604-0326. (800) 266 5759 . DrugSense is a 501c(3) non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about the expensive, ineffective, and destructive "War on Drugs." Donations are tax deductible to the extent provided by law.