Action Alert

PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP NEEDED ********************PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE************************ DrugSense FOCUS Alert #384 - Sunday, 7 September 2008 "What if major party nominees Barack Obama and John McCain were pressed to state their positions on drugs and incarceration?" writes syndicated columnist Neal Peirce. Please raise the issue with those running for public office and by sending letters to the editor. Please ask your local newspapers to print the column below. As MAP's volunteer activists find this column printed in other newspapers they will be listed at the top of this webpage http://www.mapinc.org/author/Neal+Peirce ********************************************************************** Contact: [email protected] Pubdate: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 Source: Seattle Times (WA) Copyright: 2008 Washington Post Writers Group Author: Neal Peirce, Syndicated Columnist REAL COMMANDER NEEDED FOR THE WAR ON DRUGS Will America's ill-starred "war on drugs" and its expanding prison culture make it into the presidential campaign? Standard wisdom says "no way." We may have the world's highest rate of incarceration -- with only 5 percent of global population, 25 percent of prisoners worldwide. We may be throwing hundreds of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders, many barely of age, behind bars -- one reason a stunning one out of every 100 Americans is now imprisoned. We may have created a huge "prison-industrial complex" of prison builders, contractors and swollen criminal justice bureaucracies. Federal, state and local outlays for law enforcement and incarceration are costing, according to a Senate committee estimate, a stunning $200 billion annually, siphoning off funds from enterprises that actually build our future: universities, schools, health, infrastructure. We are reaping the whirlwind of "get tough" on crime statutes ranging from "three strikes you're in" to mandatory sentences to reincarcerating recent prisoners for minor parole violations. And every year we're seeing hundreds of thousands of convicts leave prison with scant chances of being employed, no right to vote, no access to public housing, high levels of addiction, illiteracy and mental illness. Overwhelmed by the odds against them, at least 50 percent are rearrested within two years. A serious set of problems, a shadow over our national future? No doubt. But do our politicians talk much about alternatives? No way -- they typically find it too risky to be attacked as "soft on crime." But let's imagine -- what if major party nominees Barack Obama and John McCain were pressed to state their positions on drugs and incarceration? I've combed through statements by both men. My early reading is that with McCain, there'd be a thin chance of reform, but under Obama, much brighter prospects. It is true that both men favored -- Obama actually co-sponsored -- the federal Second Chance Act, passed this year, which provides up to $360 million to support job training, mentors and counseling for inmates released from custody. But McCain has been routinely "hawkish" on drug policy, endorsing higher penalties for drug-selling, supporting the death penalty for drug kingpins, and opposing any softening of laws forbidding marijuana use, which he characterizes as a dangerous "gateway drug." Obama, by contrast, expresses serious concern that at 2 million-plus inmates, "we have by far the largest prison population, per capita, of any place on earth." He endorses full justice and imprisonment for dangerous criminals but a far more nuanced approach to drug cases in particular. "Anybody who sees the devastating impact of the drug trade in the inner cities, or the methamphetamine trade in rural communities, knows that this is a huge problem," he recently told a Rolling Stone interviewer. "I believe in shifting the paradigm, shifting the model, so that we can focus on a more public-health approach." During the primary season Obama spoke with special concern about nonviolent drug offenders, many as young as 18 to 20: "The worst thing we can do is to lock them up for a long period of time, without any education if they're functionally illiterate, without any skills or training. They're now convicted felons" -- perhaps 25 or 26 years old -- "out on the streets and can't be hired by anybody." His conclusion: The more focus put on diversion programs, drug courts, treatment of substance abusers, and "encourage training and skills and literacy ... the more effective we are in reducing recidivism rates." Obama is clearly not yet willing to discuss lifting prohibitions on marijuana or other drugs. But he would seem open to lead the country in a serious debate about our drug and incarceration policies -- a dramatic break from recent presidencies, both Republican and Democratic. Arguably, that's precisely the discussion the nation needs. America's prisoner total has tripled over the last two decades, with systems bursting at the seams -- California, for example, at 175 percent of capacity, Alabama at 200 percent. Yet North Carolina anticipates 1,000 more prisoners a year; Pennsylvania, 1,500; Arizona, 2,200; Florida 3,000. Small wonder major prisoner re-entry and diversion facilities for less serious offenders are being set up in Kansas, Michigan, Georgia and other states. California this November votes on a landmark "nonviolent offender rehabilitation" initiative designed to divert thousands from the state's bloated $10-billion-a-year prison system. It's high time, says Georgia Corrections Commissioner Jim Donald, "to differentiate between those offenders we are 'afraid of' and those we are just 'mad at.' " Talk about a serious national issue on which we could use some presidential leadership -- not dictating precise answers, but moving us to debate alternatives. It's been 20 years since drugs and prisons have even been mentioned in the televised presidential debates. Maybe not just Obama but McCain too could surprise us with some fresh ideas and promise of leadership as president. But we probably won't hear this unless reporters press the issue. ********************************************************************** Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides ********************************************************************** PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by emailing a copy to [email protected] if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others may learn from your efforts. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ( [email protected] ) will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing efforts. To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see: http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form

Tell Congress to Stand Up for Students Tell your representative and senators that you are tired of the same old "Drug War" politics. http://www.ssdp.org/speakup/

Dear friends,

Congress failed us.

Despite a decade-long campaign by Students for Sensible Drug Policy, supporters like you, and a large and powerful coalition of more than 500 prominent organizations, Congress finally reauthorized the Higher Education Act (HEA) last week but chose to ignore our demands that they overturn the provision that strips financial aid from college students with drug convictions.

How come?

Outrageously, staffers on Capitol Hill are telling us that some members of Congress were terrified of facing negative attack ads calling them "pro-drug" if they voted for a bill reinstating aid to students with drug convictions.

Even as Congress was debating the HEA bill last week, Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), the author and chief proponent of the aid penalty claimed on the House floor that his precious provision "has been much aligned [sic] by ***pro-drug groups*** around the country."

So you can see that one of the major roadblocks to reform is the false conventional wisdom that voters will punish politicians who do the right thing by repealing harmful and ineffective drug laws. 

It's up to reformers like you and me to smash this false conventional wisdom by standing up and showing politicians that they will actually win votes for doing the right thing (and that, conversely, we may punish them at the polls for letting their unfounded fears stand in the way of progress).  After all, it is this anti-education penalty itself that causes more drug abuse, right?

So no matter how many times you have taken action on this issue in the past, please take just one minute to edit and send a pre-written letter to your representative and two senators demanding that Congress stop letting senseless political fears keep deserving and hardworking students out of school.

Click here right now to take action. http://www.ssdp.org/speakup/

And please make sure you forward us any responses you get from your legislators so we can track who is standing in the way of change.  Send those important responses to [email protected] when you get them.

Despite this setback, SSDP and our coalition allies are as determined as ever to see this senseless penalty repealed.  We are already planning our strategy for the next Congress and presidential administration, and remain optimistic that despite the barriers we have yet to overcome, we will ultimately restore financial aid to the more than 200,000 students impacted by this penalty.  In the meantime, members of Congress need to continue to hear an unwavering message from constituents that the public will not stand idly by as our elected officials continue to deny access to education in the name of the so-called "War on Drugs."

If we don't speak up and demand change when legislators need to hear it most, who will?  Please take action today. http://www.ssdp.org/speakup/

Thanks for all that you do,
Tom Angell
SSDP Government Relations Director

P.S. If you'd like to see SSDP continue to work on this and other issues, let us know by making a donation today. http://www.ssdp.org/donate

P.P.S. If you are a student wishing to get involved in fighting back against Drug War attacks on youth, contact us about starting an SSDP chapter: http://www.ssdp.org/chapters/start

Good morning, I am reaching out this morning to my broad network of friends, family, and colleagues and asking that you consider signing onto the attached petition to the Government of Iran on behalf of Drs. Kamiar Alaei and Arash Alaei, physician brothers who have been working on HIV and drug use in Iran for many years. They have been detained without any charges by Iranian security forces since late June. We are concerned that their detainment may be related to their harm reduction work and leadership. The petition calls on the government of Iran to either charge or immediately release them. Please consider signing PHR's petition and let me know if you would like me to keep you informed of progress in the case. The petition is online at http://actnow-phr.org/campaign/iran_free_the_docs. Thank you. Paola Paola Barahona, MPH Global Health Policy Associate Physicians for Human Rights 1156 15th Street NW, Suite 1001 Washington, DC 20005 (202) 728-5335 (ext.300) [email protected] www.HealthActionAIDS.org www.physiciansforhumanrights.org 20 years of advancing health, dignity and justice

On November 4th Massachusetts voters will have the chance to pass a ballot initiative decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana -- removing the threat of jail time for possessing an ounce or less of marijuana for personal use. In response to the announcement that the initiative will be on the ballot a columnist for Boston's tabloid newspaper wrote the column below which was printed today. Letters to the editor of the Boston Herald need to be short and well written - under 200 words. The average printed letter is about 120 words in length. Please also support the initiative. For details visit http://sensiblemarijuanapolicy.org/ ********************************************************************** Contact: [email protected] Pubdate: Sun, 6 Jul 2008 Source: Boston Herald (MA) Copyright: 2008 The Boston Herald, Inc Author: Howie Carr SENSIBLE POT A HALF-BAKED POLICY, DUDE Marijuana makes you stupid. It's as simple as that. And now in Massachusetts, we are going to have a ballot question that asks the following: Do you really want to make it even easier than it already is to get stupid, and stay stupid? Yes, the Bong Brigade is on the march again. They want to put the high back into high school, the truckin' back in truck stops, the joint back in all those joint legislative committees. Stand by to see stoners at the Stone Zoo, potheads in Marblehead. The grass is always greener in Greenfield, dude. If you liked HempFest on the Boston Common every September, you're going to love legalized marijuana. This one's, like, totally for Jerry Garcia! This year, the front group is something called the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy, and it's pushing a Sensible State Marijuana Policy. Its flacks are available for media interviews to discuss their "sensible policy." Organizers include the usual "concerned citizens," with a few token "former law enforcement professionals" thrown in. Their goal is to use the initiative to abolish criminal penalties for less than an ounce of marijuana or, to use their preferred word, hemp, as in, "Dude, did you know, like, George Washington's army used hemp when it was fighting in, uh, like, was it the Civil War, man?" The sensible group's press release sounds like it was written after watching a "Dragnet 1967" marathon on TVLand. Harmless people, we are told, "are arrested, booked, entered into the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) system, resulting in a possible sentence of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine." Key word: possible. Do you know how difficult it is to actually be thrown in jail around here? You can lie under oath and obstruct justice, and you don't have to do a day in the can - am I right Tom Finneran? Pot charges are usually meaningless add-ons, like piling a driving-to-endanger on top on an OUI, or like Neil Entwistle being charged with possession of an unregistered handgun. The potheads say 7,500 marijuana citations make it onto the CORI system every year. But how many of those Class B controlled-substance convictions are added to someone's CORI record along with more serious raps like, say, for possession of Class D controlled substances (cocaine) with intent to distribute? The ganja-guys then cite the alleged "collateral damage" of this CORI indignity: "inability to find employment, obtain housing and receive a college loan." Please. The reason stoners can't find employment is because they're too wasted. They forgot to turn on the alarm clock. They went out for a smoke break and never returned. They missed the bus, man. They can't "obtain housing" because they can't get it together to ever leave mom's rent-free basement. Unless you're in the cop's face when you light up - like they do at HempFest - you face almost zero chance of getting arrested. Decriminalizing pot doesn't seem like a big deal, I'll grant you. After the courts decreed Adam and Eve are going to be Adam and Steve, bringing Cheech & Chong along for the ride amounts to little more than a footnote. But the problem with this ballot question is, it will lead to more pot smoking, which this society needs like . . . like, fill in the blank, dude. How can the same health pests who loathe tobacco not care a whit about a different debilitating drug that you have to ingest into your lungs in the form of smoke? The fact is, once you make something legal, even if it's just de facto, it's easier to get. Pot does fry your brain. On my radio show, I can tell a stoner within 10 seconds. They . . . talk . . . slow. They mention "hemp." They talk about "thousands" of political prisoners locked up for pot. And since their vocabulary is so stunted, because their memories are shot, they keep repeating the same words over and over again. Sensible . . . sensible . . . sensible. ********************************************************************** Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides Or contact MAP's Media Activism Facilitator for tips on how to write LTEs that are printed. [email protected] ********************************************************************** PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others may learn from your efforts. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ([email protected]) will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing efforts.

[Courtesy of DrugSense] FOCUS Alert #368 - Tuesday, 24 Jun 2008 Orange County is considered to be among the most conservative in California. The Orange County Register is the county's major newspaper. Over the years the newspaper has supported in editorials and columns California's Proposition 215. Last Saturday the newspaper printed the article below. In addition to the article, the newspaper's website is currently conducting an opinion poll titled "Should marijuana be legal?" and providing a discussion forum about the article. If you wish to vote in the poll and/or place a comment in the forum please go to: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/monson-says-marijuana-2072170-police-adams Please also consider sending a Letter to the Editor to The Orange County Register expressing your reaction to the article. Thanks for your effort and support. It's not what others do it's what YOU do. ********************************************************************* Pubdate: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 Source: Orange County Register, The (CA) Copyright: 2008 The Orange County Register Contact: [email protected] Author: Eugene W. Fields, The Orange County Register DISABLED MAN FIGHTS FOR HIS MARIJUANA Charles Monson, a Quadriplegic, Had His Home Raided and His Medicinal Marijuana Seized at Gunpoint. A swimming accident three decades ago at Newport Beach left Charles Monson paralyzed. A drug raid at his home about a year ago left Monson without the marijuana he says he needs. The raid has left him depending on a medical marijuana dispensary in Orange that was also raided. Fighting to stay in business, the small store-front dispensary has helped Monson deal with his pain. Monson, 45, was paralyzed in 1979 when he and a friend decided to go for a swim. "I dove under a wave, hit a shallow spot and broke my neck," Monson recalls. "I was paralyzed instantly and was floating face-down." Monson, who is confined to a wheelchair and has lost most of the use of his hands, tried to remain active. He's an avid skydiver, despite breaking his legs twice Nevertheless, he says he lives in constant pain and discomfort. "My brain isn't able to constantly able to monitor the muscles in my legs," he says. "Any little stimulus like being touched or moving my wheelchair or sitting still for a while and then moving will trigger a muscle spasm, big ones, that will yank my body to the side." As a result, Monson was chronically sleep-deprived to the point of falling asleep behind the wheel of his specially equipped van. Doctors prescribed muscle relaxants and various other seizure medications, but Monson says he didn't like the side effects. Finds Relief "I had tried Valium, Baclofen, Gabapentin. That gave me a sense of not being sharp in my mind and just feeling kind of woozy," Monson says. "I tried Marinol, which is synthetic marijuana. It's very hard to dose. It's either not very effective, or when it gets to the point of being effective, you're loopy." Monson says a friend recommended marijuana in the 1980s and after trying it, he said he found relief: "I smoked it in bed and I slept better than I ever had. The other thing that makes cannabis so much more effective than any other of the spasticity drugs is that it allows me rather than just treating my spasticity to manage it." When California voters passed Proposition 215 in 1996, which allowed marijuana usage for medicinal purposes, Monson says he started to grow marijuana. Monson says his life changed dramatically on the morning of October 30, 2007. "I wake up to a horrendously loud pounding on the front door at 7 a.m. in the morning," Monson says. "My friend said it was the police and I told him to let them in." Monson says a dozen Orange police officers armed with assault rifles and bullet-proof vests swarmed into his modest home and handcuffed both his house guest and care provider before coming into Monson's bedroom, demanding he get out of bed. "I told them I couldn't so they uncuffed my care provider," Monson says. "He got me dressed and into the chair and then they (police) went about ransacking my house." Monson says he used a spare bedroom to cultivate his marijuana plants, where a sign posted on the door read that the plants were for medicinal purposes. The police entered the room and, according to Monson, confiscated 16 plants and roughly 2-1/2 ounces of marijuana. "I told them I was growing it legally and they said it's against federal law," Monson says. "They came down on me like I was some drug kingpin." Sgt. Dan Adams of the Orange Police Department says 19 plants were seized and Monson was arrested for felony cultivation of marijuana, theft of utilities, sales of marijuana and conspiracy. "When you get 19 plants and you get a full-blown irrigation system and a light system, it was obviously a substantial operation he had running there," Adams said. "It's a good amount, but anything is a good amount because it's illegal as far as law enforcement is concerned." The District Attorney's office declined to prosecute the case. "The first month after the raid, I couldn't sleep well," Monson said. "Finally, it occurred to me that I was having a post-traumatic effect because I didn't know when they were going to bang down my door again." Searching for Marijuana Fearful of growing marijuana, Monson turned to other sources. "I had to go to people a buy it. None of them have ever been touched by the police," he says. "I don't know why they came after me. Somebody thought I was a king-pin." In December, Monson hired an attorney and decided to file a civil suit against the city. Four months later he read about Nature's Wellness, a dispensary on Lincoln Avenue in Orange that had been raided. Monson said he visited with Bob Adams, the dispensary owner, to share information about his case. Monson said he worked out a deal to receive half of the two ounces of marijuana he needs a month to manage his condition. Adams, who was detained by the Drug Enforcement Agency after his shop was raided in March, says he was just providing a service to another patient with a doctor's recommendation. "This man needs medicine and I've got it," Adams says. "That's what I'm here for." Adams says hearing about Monson's arrest upset him. "We've got a quadriplegic here. It's amazing that he wakes up every morning," Adams says. "Don't we have better things to do as far as our local authorities are concerned than chase around a quadriplegic that's in pain?" Monson says he was grateful for the aid from the dispensary and is waiting for his court case to move ahead. "I probably won't (grow) until that whole thing is settled with the police," he says. "I don't want a decent garden going again, just to have it taken away." ********************************************************************* Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides, or contact MAP's Media Activism Facilitator for tips on how to write LTEs that are printed at [email protected]. ********************************************************************* PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others can learn from your efforts. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ([email protected]) will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing efforts.

Dear friends:

If you take only one action to help reform our nation's marijuana laws this year, it should be this one.

Please take one minute to ask your U.S. House member to vote for the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment, which would stop the federal government from arresting patients who are using medical marijuana legally under state law.

The full U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the amendment in just a few weeks — and there will probably be earlier committee action on medical marijuana legislation any day now — so it's crucial that your U.S. representative hear from constituents like you.

MPP's online action system makes it easy. Just fill in your name and address and we'll do the rest.

Take action here.

Twelve states have passed laws protecting medical marijuana patients from arrest and jail. However, the federal government continues to ignore those state laws. For instance, just last month, DEA agents conducted a series of raids on California medical marijuana dispensaries that were operating legally under state law.

It's outrageous that the federal government is overturning the will of the people in these 12 states.

It's outrageous that the federal government is kicking in the doors and breaking the windows of medical marijuana dispensaries, stealing cash and marijuana from the proprietors of these establishments, and racing off in their black SUVs before TV news cameras arrive to document these governmental assaults.

I know you feel strongly that this is wrong. Would you please use your voice to deliver that message to Congress?

If we stand together, we will persuade Congress to change federal law.

Sincerely,

Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.

P.S. As I've mentioned in previous alerts, a major philanthropist has committed to match the first $3.0 million that MPP can raise from the rest of the planet in 2008. This means that your donation today will be doubled.

[Courtesy of Harm Reduction Coalition] TAKE ACTION: National Call-In to Repeal the Federal Ban on Syringe Exchange In an important triumph for health advocates, Congress recently lifted the ban on the use of local tax dollars for syringe exchange in Washington DC. Now is the time to end the overall federal ban on funding syringe exchange, and we need everyone's help this week. Please join a national call-in to your Representative, asking them to demonstrate their support by signing onto a letter to House leadership. This is the first action in Congress in a decade to lift the ban, and we need to make a strong showing. One third of HIV infections in the United States are related to injection drug use. The 20-year federal funding ban curtails local communities from using their prevention dollars as they see fit to support this effective intervention. What you can do: Go to www.house.gov to find out who represents you. Find out how they voted on allowing Washington DC to lift the ban on using local tax dollars to support their syringe exchange programs. A 'nay' vote is good. It means they support the District using its own funds to conduct needle exchange. Now we need them to authorize the use of federal funding for all states. An 'aye' vote means they need extra education on the issue. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2007-589 Call up your US Representative's DC office (U.S. Congress switchboard at 1-800-828-0498, or 202-224-3121) and ask to speak to their Health staffer. Ask them to sign the bipartisan 'Dear Colleague' letter circulating by Reps Cummings (D-MD) and Castle (R-DE). If they already have, thank them! For a copy to send them go to www.harmreduction.org/article.php?id=766 Suggested message: Local communities should decide how best to fight the spread of HIV. Syringe exchanges are proven to help reduce HIV infection and also provide important links to drug treatment. It's time to lift the federal ban on syringe exchange funding. Will [xx member] sign the Cummings/Castle letter? Other key talking points: INJECTION-RELATED HIV One third of people with HIV in the United States were infected through injection drug use. Every year, another 8,000 people are newly infected with HIV through sharing contaminated syringes. THESE INFECTIONS ARE PREVENTABLE In communities where access to sterile syringes is supported, transmission of HIV in injecting drug users has declined as a proportion of all cases by mode of transmission. Decreases have also been documented among the sex partners and children of injection drug users. SYRINGE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS ARE HIGHLY COST-EFFECTIVE The lifetime cost of medical care for each new HIV infection is $385,200; the equivalent amount of money spent on syringe exchange programs would prevent at least 30 new HIV infections. SYRINGE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS INCREASE ACCESS TO DRUG TREATMENT & MEDICAL CARE In addition to the reduced risks for disease, sterile syringe access programs facilitate greater access to drug treatment. These programs also provide a crucial entry point into medical care, detox and rehabilitation, and mental health treatment. NEARLY 200 SYRINGE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS currently operate in 38 states, Puerto Rico, Washington DC, and Indian Lands. Most operate on a shoestring, surviving on dwindling private donations and severe restrictions of public funding. THE MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY SUPPORT SYRINGE EXCHANGE Studies by the Centers for Disease Control and the National Academy of Sciences show that syringe exchange programs are effective. Programs have the support of the medical community, including the American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association and the American Nurses Association SYRINGE EXCHANGES GET DIRTY NEEDLES OFF THE STREETS Research demonstrates that the presence of a syringe exchange program results in fewer used syringes improperly discarded. . In Baltimore, after an SEP was implemented, the number of inappropriately discarded syringes decreased by almost 50%. . In Portland, the number of discarded syringes decreased by almost two-thirds after the NEP opened. . In 1992, Connecticut repealed a law forbidding the sale of syringes without a prescription. As a result, reports show a reduction in needle sharing by 50 percent and a decrease in HIV infections by over 30 percent. In addition, law enforcement officials experienced two-thirds fewer needle stick injuries. Email [email protected] and let us know what you hear back! Hilary McQuie Western Director Harm Reduction Coalition 1440 Broadway, Suite 510 Oakland, CA 94612 Tel: 510-444-6969 Fax: 510-444-6977 www.harmreduction.org [email protected]

Below the Florida Times-Union Senior Columnist Tonya Weathersbee provides a disturbing analysis of an aspect of the failure of the War on Drugs. Please consider writing and sending a Letter to the Editor of the Florida Times Union expressing your reaction to this column. Thanks for your effort and support. It's not what others do it's what YOU do. ********************************************************************** Contact: Florida Times-Union http://www.jacksonville.com/aboutus/letters_to_editor.shtml Pubdate: Mon, 26 May 2008 Source: Florida Times-Union (FL) Copyright: 2008 The Florida Times-Union Author: Tonyaa Weathersbee, The Times-Union SOME ARE DRIVEN TO CRIME BY ECONOMIC DESPERATION Ruth Davis says she isn't on drugs. But she was desperate. She's also a cautionary tale. According to a recent McClatchy News Service story, the Miami grandmother is sitting in a North Carolina jail. She's been there since December. That was when a state trooper nabbed her as she was transporting 33 pounds of marijuana to New York. He stopped Davis for speeding, but then noticed a strong odor as she rolled down her car window. Her answers to the trooper's questions about her travel plans didn't jibe. So he asked if he could search her car. She agreed. But Davis didn't know he was going to call the dogs to help him look. Game over. Drug enforcement officials say that people like Davis, who is 65, are becoming part of a trend; that drug dealers are now recruiting elderly people to carry drugs because there's less of a chance that they will be stopped or profiled. There's also the chance that police will be disarmed by their sweetness and vulnerability. Davis, in fact, said that she had hoped to charm her way out of a speeding ticket. I almost wish that had worked for her. Because it wasn't greed that made Davis agree to become a drug mule. It was pain. It was the pain of not being able to pay the $20,000-plus that she owed doctors for treatment of a blood disease. It was the pain of seeing her daughter's face disfigured from a car crash, and not being able to help her pay the $3,000 needed for corrective plastic surgery. It was the pain that a person feels when hitting rock bottom with no safety net to catch her. It's a pain that has been exploited by drug dealers who recruit the desperate and the defeated. And just as the drug trade has become the dominant economy for many poor, inner-city communities, it's not surprising that as other safety nets begin to fray, more people will grab on to anything to stop their free fall. In Davis' case, that meant grabbing onto the promises of a drug dealer. Me, I'm not all that surprised that some elderly folks would be vulnerable to that kind of coercion. In some neighborhoods in which drug dealers are the closest thing to philanthropists that most people there will ever see, they help some old people pay bills. But while Davis wasn't exactly poor - she said she owns her own home and works as a diet consultant - her medical bills apparently still made it hard for her to make ends meet. And, in case we forget, soaring medical bills can plunge anyone into poverty. Or it can push them to make thoughtless choices. So when I see cases such as hers, I'm reminded of how the drug trade is fueled by different degrees of hopelessness. In the inner cities, you have kids who work as drug sellers and lookouts because few know the lure of legitimate work, because not much of that exists where they live. Then you have some people who sell drugs to supplement low-wage jobs. Unlike Davis, they aren't casualties of an emergency as much as they are casualties of an illicit economy that has usurped the legitimate economy. Then there's the hopelessness that turned Davis into a drug mule. Such hopelessness is the kind that overwhelms people who are being let down by what many have come to view as guarantees in American life; that if you pay your bills, obey the law, drink your milk and say your prayers, the system won't allow misfortunes like medical emergencies to make you destitute. Now I know that not every senior citizen who is faced with hardships is going to sell drugs. Yet, Davis' story still is a revealing one. Among other things, it illustrates, once again, the failure of the war on drugs. We fill our prisons and jails with nonviolent offenders like Davis - a woman who, ironically, became a felon to avoid becoming a deadbeat - as the kingpins go free. And even as people like Davis sit in jail, Americans continue to use drugs at about the same rate as they did when President Nixon declared a war on drugs in 1971. As long as that continues to happen, and as long as jobs continue to hemorrhage and medical costs continue to spiral, people will look for ways to survive. And the drug lords will be waiting. ********************************************************************** Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides, or contact MAP's Media Activism Facilitator for tips on how to write LTEs that are printed. [email protected] ********************************************************************** PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others can learn from your efforts. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ([email protected]) will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing efforts.