Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 15:22:00 -0700
Subject:Portugal assesses its approach to drug users one year after decrim Up TOC

from Andrew Seidenfeld

Portugal assesses its softer approach to drug users
A year after Lisbon decriminalized drug use, views differ on whether
the policy works. By Sara B. Miller
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0808/p07s01-woeu.html


from the August 08, 2002 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0808/p07s01-woeu.html


Portugal assesses its softer approach to drug users
A year ago Lisbon decriminalized drug use. Views differ on whether the
policy is effective.

By Sara B. Miller | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

PORTO, PORTUGAL - In the shadowy labyrinth of cobblestone streets around
this port city's 12-century S=E9 cathedral, heroin addicts have long been
selling drugs and shooting up.

Police had hoped that the narcotics-infested neighborhood would change after
Portugal's decision to decriminalize the use of all drugs. But a year after
the sweeping initiative took effect, they say the scene, and their jobs,
have changed little.

"There are no fewer people here today than a year ago," says one of three
officers on the night shift, who asked that his name not be used since,
officially, the police are in favor of decriminalization.

"The program has a good intention, but it isn't working. They go to
rehabilitation and come right back. Or they are at rehabilitation by day and
shooting up here at night."

Portugal, a main gateway for drugs entering Europe, has among the highest
per capita rates of hard drug use in the European Union, with an estimated
80,000 heroin addicts in a population of 10 million. Decriminalizing drug
consumption was intended to attack the problem at its source: With users
given treatment and education instead of jail time, police could devote more
time and resources to catching traffickers.

While an evaluation to be released later this month by the nation's
Institute for Drugs and Drug Addiction points to some positive results over
the past year, the frustrations, and the cost of the program, have some
critics urging cutbacks.

The program is being watched by other countries in Western Europe, which has
rejected the hard-line US approach and moved increasingly to lenient
policies toward users.

Just last month, Britain, traditionally an anti-drug bastion, became the
latest to follow the trend, announcing that private use of marijuana in
small amounts will not result in jail time.

So far, Portugal has gone the furthest, decriminalizing the use  but not
sale of all drugs, from cannabis to cocaine. When users are caught, they
are sent to one of the country's 18 newly created commissions staffed with
social workers, legal advisers, and psychiatrists. The commission decides
whether the user will be sent to a treatment program. Sanctions, such as
revocation of passport or a fine for repeated offenses typically about
$150 can also be imposed.

The commissions also try to inspire users to look inward for motivation to
quit, asking them such questions as: Why do you use drugs? How do you think
you could stop the need?

The commission in Porto, which has seen 1,032 users in its first year,
according to its president, Eduarda Costa, is in the city's business
district. It has the sleek feel of a public relations office, with hardwood
floors, top-40 music in the background, and a casually dressed young staff.
The hope is that these commissions will serve as a kinder, gentler path to
prevention and treatment than the court system did.

According to the national drug institute evaluation, of the 6,000 users who
were sent to the commissions in the past year, some 1,600 have undergone
treatment at the Prevention and Treatment of Drug Addiction Service, the
public rehabilitation center.

"One of the most important things Portugal has learned this year is the
importance of dissuasion," says Elza Pais, the president of the
government-run drug institute. "With the commissions, drug users are getting
to treatment much faster."

When the initiative was passed last year, it drew criticism from
conservative politicians and some members of the Roman Catholic church.
Paulo Portas, former leader of the Popular Party and now the nation's
defense minister, strongly condemned the law, concerned that it would turn
the country into a haven for drug trafficking and drug tourism. Under the
new program, trafficking is still a crime.

"There has been no indication that more traffickers have come to the country
or that drug use or drug tourism is increasing," says Vitalino Canas, a
member of parliament who directed the program last year as the secretary of
state under the Socialist government. He says that it is still too early to
assess the full impact of the program.

It is unclear whether the program will result in more trafficking arrests.
Since the start of the program in July 2001, 1,892 people have been caught
for trafficking, about the same number as were caught last year.

Still, at least with regard to drug users, the public has a new perception
that something is being done, says Pais. "The sense of impunity has
disappeared, since consumers, when caught by the police, are considered very
rapidly by [the commissions]," she says. "Before, processes could take as
long as two years to be taken to court. Nowadays, within four to five weeks
a decision is taken."

When the new conservative government took office last spring, it threatened
to abandon the program, says Danilo Ballotta, an expert at the European
Union Monitoring Center for Drug and Drug Addiction in Lisbon. Instead, the
program was moved under the health department to fit in line with the
philosophy that drug users are patients, not criminals, and no major
structural changes were made.

"It is very rare that a new government, of different colors, would take the
same program and not change it. I think that shows it is working well and
that the people are in favor of it," Ballotta says. "[The government]
realized that it is the trend in Europe new legislation that softens
policies toward drug users, just like in Spain and Italy."

The government is considering cutting back the program, however.

Officials are studying the possibility of closing down some of the 18
commissions because, although Pais says that coordination between the police
and the commissions is growing. not enough users are being sent to the
commissions to keep them busy.

And other reductions may be on the way. "Treatment is controlled by
outsources, and the problem is the cost," Ballotta says. "Whenever public
money is cut, one of the first places it is cut from is health."

The decriminalization project is part of a comprehensive anti-drug campaign
set to run until 2004, when a fuller assessment will be made. The campaign
includes education and prevention programs in jails and in classrooms, from
elementary school to college; media initiatives; and information programs in
parent associations.

One of the major components is risk-reduction, including needle exchange
programs, methadone centers, and street teams of health care workers who
drive around drug-infested neighborhoods and distribute information along
with clean needles.

According to the national drug institute's web site, public spending is to
increase 10 percent per year until 2004, up to $1.53 billion.

The program is having an important impact on public opinion, according to
the national drug institute's evaluation.

"We are experiencing a revolution of mentalities," says Pais, "which
facilitates the social integration process so that drug users aren't
marginalized."




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web:     http://www.crrh.org/

------------------------------
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 16:12:49 -0700
Subject:CA: Medical marijuana user mistakes neighbors for thieves Up TOC

from Dale Geiringer  canorml@igc.org

Thursday, August 01, 2002 - 2:45:02 PM MST

Medical marijuana user mistakes neighbors for thieves

By MARK HEDGES/The Ukiah Daily Journal

It's a confusing scene these days when it comes to marijuana.

The stuff is officially illegal, yet officially on a "low priority" for law=

enforcement when it comes to "mom and pop" gardens.

Adding to the complexity is the medical marijuana I.D. card program, which=

is flowering as an offshoot of Proposition 215.

One local mother, whom we shall name "Mary" for the sake of anonymity,
encountered some of this confusion the other day, when her 15-year-old son=

had a run-in with her pot-growing neighbor.

Now, the plants this fellow is growing are legal, and hence the anonymity
in this tale. He has a medical condition and is an I.D. cardholder.

"Last year I kept smelling skunks for three months," said Mary, who hadn't=

realized that the green stuff growing a few feet above her fence was herb.

Last week, her son and his 14-year-old cousin were marveling out loud about=

how much money the hearty buds proliferating above the fence would be
worth, when the neighbor confronted them, thinking they were thieves.

"He really scared the boys," Mary said. "They told me they said hi' but he=

didn't hear them and just kept yelling. He's very paranoid. Someone's tried=

to steal his plants before."

So the boys ran inside, but the guy came over and was banging on the front=

door, she said. Mary said the neighbor called her at work and said someone=

tried to break into her house.

It was about at this point that the boys split on their skateboards, and
the man chased them in his car. "He had the boys arrested for breaking into=

their own home," Mary said, though she explained that things got cleared up=

fast. The boys were just warned to leave the neighbor alone.

"My sister, the mother of the other boy, called the Sheriff's Office,"
continued Mary. "She was told, This is legal; it is his property, but we
understand that they were innocent.'"

Mary said her sister "went in and really told them this isn't fair.'

"The other sheriff said You wouldn't believe what we have to do; we have to=

turn our head because that's our instructions,'" related Mary.

"I got off work and went and talked to (the neighbor), and got the whole
story," Mary said. "He thought someone was trying to rob the plants, heard=

the boys talking, said something and they didn't answer."

At first she thought the boys had been looking over the fence, but it was
then that her sister pointed out the towering herb plants. "I didn't even
notice it; I never look in anybody's yard," she explained, "but I can go to=

my back door and see them from my sliding glass door. They must be about
eight feet high."

Mary strikes one as being fairly open-minded, but she's upset by the
incident. "The neighborhood's in kind of a furor," she said. "We heard this=

is happening a lot. There's no real regulations for where we can grow it or=

how."

As for her neighbor, Mary said: "He's sick; he's got medical marijuana
that's fine. I actually voted for medical marijuana, but it's not what I
understood it to be. People don't understand what's going on. You may have=

voted, but did you think about the implications? Have we thought about that?

"How do we protect our children," she queried. "If you're using it for
medical reasons, getting help for medical problems, that's good. But it
causes danger to the community and they're not totally together when
they're using it regularly."

Mary thinks some rules should be worked out, but, as part two of this
article will point out, that's not so easy to do in Sacramento.

"If you have a pool, you have to have it locked," Mary reasoned.

In Part 2, Sheriff Tony Craver discusses the topic with the Daily Journal.

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

=A9 1999-2001 MediaNews Group, Inc.

- --
- ----
Dale Gieringer (415) 563-5858  // canorml@igc.org
2215-R Market St. #278, San Francisco CA 94114



=



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web:     http://www.crrh.org/

------------------------------
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 16:15:39 -0700
Subject:CA: Mendocino Sheriff's Views on MJ, Medical and Otherwise Up TOC

from Dale Geiringer  canorml@igc.org

Sunday, August 04, 2002 - 12:03:49 AM MST Ukiah Daily Journal

Medical marijuana confusing to everyone, sheriff says

Part Two: In the first part of this article, "Mary" expressed her concern
about a run-in her 15 year old son had with their medical marijuana-growing=

neighbor, who fears his plants will be robbed. Mary expressed her concerns=

that there are "no real regul
By MARK HEDGES

The Ukiah Daily Journal

Mendocino County Sheriff Tony Craver agrees things are confusing when it
comes to medical marijuana.

"It's a nightmare," he said. "It's confusing to everybody."

Craver said pot plants grown by medical marijuana ID cardholders at their
homes are "left alone."

"We have no statutory authority to establish guidelines as to where they
have to have gardens, security measures to take, etc.," he said. "The
people who are empowered and technically obligated to clean this up, the
Legislature, has been unable to do this. There's a whole myriad of issues
they're stumbling around over."

Craver said there have been three different attempts to try to get the
Legislature to "clean up" Proposition 215 with some statewide standards.

"The last attempt made it through the Senate and the Assembly and was
vetoed by the governor," he added. "So you know it leaves us all in a
quandary, with everyone to fend for themselves."

Craver said the question is "how much can you possess? Is it unlimited? Is=

it whatever the court deems reasonable? Every county in California has a
different philosophy on this."

Craver said a California State Supreme Court decision two weeks ago
regarding a medical marijuana grower in Tuolumne County upheld that
California's Proposition 215 defends patients from prosecution.

"You can't be prosecuted if you have a documented doctor's recommendation,"=

explained Craver.

As for Mendocino County, Craver said "we were one of the front runners in
coming up with standards as far as I know, we were the first county to come=

up with the medical marijuana card."

Craver said there were some misconceptions about the ID program, that the
anti-marijuana community feels the ID cards empower people to use
marijuana. "No," Craver declared, "we issue the card to confirm a doctor
has empowered them to consume marijuana, to readily identify them as a
lawful consumer to law enforcement so they don't seize their marijuana or
attempt to prosecute and spend time on something already investigated it's=

saving time, which is saving cost, and also it alleviates the anxiety of
medical growers."

Craver explained that even though the law says all a medical grower has to=

have is a recommendation by a physician, not an ID card, by having an ID
card they avoid being hassled.

"The prospective medical marijuana patient gets a packet from the Sheriff's=

Office, the District Attorney's Office or any of the branches of Public
Health, and they take that to the doctor who certifies that the above-named=

person has recommended this person to use marijuana to relieve pain and
suffering," Craver said.

The doctor then mails this to a Public Health officer who confirms the
signature to be legitimate, and then Public Health notifies the Sheriff's
Office.

"Then we contact the patient and say we've gotten approval so come on
down," he continued. "We take down certain information and then issue a
fertile ID card."

Craver said this system has worked out quite well. Even if a person does
not have his ID on him, a law enforcement officer can call the name in to
an ID card data base.

If a person has a "fertile" ID card, Craver said the risk most pot growing=

patients run is not being hassled by law enforcement, but being hassled by=

neighborhood kids who have often engaged in stealing marijuana.

"We make the recommendation of putting a big dog in the garden," Craver
said. "Also, people have collective gardens which they take turns watching."

But the rub on the whole program is the fact that marijuana has a high
street value, and Craver's not afraid of stating that he agrees with the
philosophy that eliminating that street value by legalization would stop
much of the marijuana problem in terms of theft or commercial growing
operations tied in with organized crime.

"Let me say I'm not in favor of smoking marijuana," Craver said, "but the
people that consume it could care less what I think that's never stopped
somebody. But I do believe that if you took the profit out of growing
you're not going to see the major violence with it, the shootings and
robbery, when today it's worth $5,000 a pound. People would still steal
other people's marijuana, but it would be like stealing someone's tomatoes."

Craver said 68 percent of California residents favor legalization "It's
pretty obvious," he said. But this majority does not exist in law=
 enforcement.

Craver said he has taken "a lot of flack" from within the ranks for his
views. "If you lined up every cop, 98 percent would say they hope we never=

legalize marijuana, that it's a horrible, evil drug. But the reality is it=

being illegal is not preventing significant numbers of people from using it.

"People say what about our kids,' but, you know what? They're using it," he=

continued. "Maybe if we took the resources used to eliminate marijuana and=

used it to deal with behavior, kids using it, people using it in the
workplace, driving around stoned."

Craver said the big issues his opposition in the last election campaigned
on were his doing away with the DARE drug education program for kids and
the 25-plant limit for medical marijuana growers which was called=
 "excessive."

As for the latter, Craver said "we don't set the limits; plant limits are
set by the district attorney."

As far as DARE is concerned, he said it had been in existence in Mendocino=

for 15 years, and that kids 7 to 10 years old who went through the DARE
program when it began were now 25 year olds.

"They've been through a DARE program and here they are in jail," he said.
"Is it effective? I say no. What you tell kids when they're 7 years old may=

have an impact on them when they're in their 30s, but when you're between
18 and 35 you're impacted by peers and your own associations and
interpretations of what's wrong."

Craver said the widespread opposition to marijuana by law enforcement
officers is the result of "the people they deal with on a daily basis
they're dealing with that hard criminal element, most of whom smoke
marijuana or have it, so it's a direct association with dirtbags, and
they're all in the marijuana culture thing. So it's an unrealistic view in=

the minds of a lot of officers. They don't realize the number of
professional or blue collar people who are law-abiding but smoke joints
regularly."

Craver said the philosophy that "every junkie started by smoking marijuana"=

is a fallacy. "If you go to Death Row and ask how many French fries they
had before killing someone, does it mean French fries cause murder?"

To Craver, the reality is that some people just have a "predisposition
they're prone to some sort of abuse of a substance, whether alcohol or
marijuana, they're looking for something in life, and they can't find it
smelling the roses or having coffee with K.C. Meadows (a reference to the
Daily Journal editor's Thursday morning Meet the Editor breakfasts at
Schat's Bakery)."

Though Craver said the marijuana eradication efforts are not going after
smaller gardens, he said he doesn't have sympathy for a "guy with 10 plants=

in his yard if that person has the misfortune of us stumbling onto his
garden, we're not going to walk away unless he has a medical defense."

=A9 1999-2001 MediaNews Group, Inc.

- --
- ----
Dale Gieringer (415) 563-5858  // canorml@igc.org
2215-R Market St. #278, San Francisco CA 94114



=



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web:     http://www.crrh.org/

------------------------------
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 21:23:53 -0700
Subject:NV: Poll Shows Nevada Voters Evenly Split On Marijuana Issue Up TOC

Newshawk: The War on Drugs IS Terrorism
Pubdate: Thu,  8 Aug 2002
Source: Tahoe Daily Tribune (South Lake Tahoe,CA)
Contact: editor@tahoedailytribune.com
Copyright: 2002 Tahoe Daily Tribune
Website: http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/443
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?162 (Nevadans for Responsible Law
Enforcement)

POLL SHOWS NEVADA VOTERS EVENLY SPLIT ON MARIJUANA ISSUE

RENO (AP) -(AP)- Another poll shows Nevadans are evenly divided over a
ballot initiative legalizing the possession of up to 3 ounces of marijuana.

The latest poll conducted for the Reno Gazette-Journal and KRNV-TV in Reno
shows 48 percent of likely voters statewide support the initiative, while an
equal number oppose it and 4 percent are undecided.

The telephone survey of 600 likely voters was conducted in July by Research
2000 of Rockville, Md. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage
points.

The findings are similar to an earlier poll conducted for the Las Vegas
Review-Journal that showed 46 percent against the initiative and 44 percent
in favor. That poll also had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

But the latest poll also shows a majority of residents in Reno and Washoe
County oppose the measure. Opposition rises to 58 percent in Washoe County
and 54 percent in Reno, the poll shows.

Washoe County District Attorney wasn't surprised.

"I expect conservatism runs a little more rampant in Washoe County and the
cow counties than in Clark County," Gammick said.

"All these people leave California to get away from that kind of stuff, and
then when they get here, they want to bring all that stuff with them."

Billy Rogers, spokesman for Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement,
welcomed the latest survey findings.

"We think it's good news," he said. "Based on these results, I think it's
likely we'll win this election."
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 21:25:13 -0700
Subject:UK: 'Medicine Man' Jailed for Cultivating Drug Up TOC

Newshawk: The Legalise Cannabis Alliance <http://www.lca-uk.org>
Pubdate: Tue, 06 Aug 2002
Source: Press and Journal, The (Aberdeen, UK)
Copyright: 2002: Northcliffe Newspapers Group Ltd.
Contact: pj.editor@ajl.co.uk
Website: http://www.thisisnorthscotland.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/347
Author: Raymond Shewan

'MEDICINE MAN' JAILED FOR CULTIVATING DRUG

Police acting on a tip-off discovered a huge cannabis-growing
operation during a raid on the remote home of a drugs dealer known as
Medicine Man.

Elgin Sheriff Court heard yesterday that officers  had found cannabis
with a potential street value of more than 21,000 pounds being
cultivated by 46-year-old Stuart Nisbet.

Officers armed with a search warrant confiscated 72 plants and more
than 200 items of paraphernalia involved in their cultivation. They
also seized 980 pounds in cash which was linked to Nisbet's cannabis
operation.

Nisbet, known as Medicine Man because of his views on cannabis use,
was jailed for 15 months by Sheriff Ian Cameron, despite a defence
plea for him to be allowed to keep his liberty.

He appeared on indictment and admitted possessing cannabis with intent
to supply, being concerned in the supply of cannabis and cultivating
cannabis plants. The court heard police, acting on information, raided
Crofts Farmhouse, near Rothes, on July 18 last year and found cannabis
being cultivated.

Admitted

Sheriff Cameron was shown a book of photographs of the inside and
outside of the house and showing the scale of the cannabis-rearing
operation.

Fiscal David Dickson told Sheriff Cameron: "The accused goes by the name
Medicine Man and freely admits to supporting himself and his lifestyle
on the cultivation and sale of cannabis. In his statement to the police
he was straightforward and admitted his involvement."

Mr Dickson said the ultimate value of the cannabis had been calculated
at between 14,400 pounds and 21,600 pounds based on each plant
yielding 2-3 oz of cannabis and it being sold on.

Defence solicitor Marc Dickson said Nisbet, whose address was given as
Ardgay, Lower Cultie, Gorthleck, Inverness-shire, was unemployed but
had worked previously in horticulture.

Several years ago he was injured in a farm accident and had received
6,000 pounds in compensation, part of which he had invested in
equipment concerned with cannabis growing.

He had added to it over the years and the equipment which police had
confiscated was valued at between 3,000 pounds and 3,500 pounds, said
Mr Dickson.

"Mr Nisbet was entirely open and candid with the police and sought to
hide nothing from them."

Mr Dickson said Nisbet felt very strongly about cannabis which he had
been smoking since he was 14 or 15. The cannabis he grew was not for
sale on street corners or in pubs and clubs but was sold to people
broadly of Nisbet's age.

"In that sense he was selling a particular product," said Mr
Dickson.

He pointed out that a social background report described Nisbet as a
decent and honourable individual who accepted that what he had done
was against the law.

His views and opinions on cannabis were not going to change, said Mr
Dickson, but he had given an undertaking to obey any further court
order.

Mr Dickson suggested he might be a suitable candidate for a
restriction of liberty order which would allow him his freedom but
which would mean that he was closely supervised.

But Sheriff Cameron told Nisbet: "The fact is these activities, as you
are well aware, are illegal and you chose quite consciously to pursue
these activities on quite a substantial scale.

"I accept that you possess certain beliefs and that you are not going
to change these beliefs.

"But I am obliged to apply the law as it stands, rather than what it
might be in the future."

Nisbet lived at the secluded Crofts Farm, overlooking the River Spey,
three miles from Rothes, for only a few months and moved out shortly
after his cannabis factory was uncovered.

The present tenant who did not want to be named did not know Nisbet
but said last night that he understood that part of the flooring in
the house had to be replaced because of damage caused by Nisbet
watering his cannabis plants.

A neighbour said he had known Nisbet only by sight and they would wave
in the passing.

"He used to go off in the morning and come back at night but I don't
know where he worked. He kept himself pretty much to himself - now we
know why."
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 21:26:44 -0700
Subject: CA: Epis sentencing delayed, vigil also delayed

Friends-

The sentencing hearing for Bryan Epis has been rescheduled for September 
30, so we are also going to delay the national candlelight vigil until the 
night before, 9/29.

This gives us more time to spread the word about what is happening to 
medical marijuna providers, get op-eds and letters to the editor, & 
signatories to clemency petitions. (We will have FAQ's on this case as a 
downloadable doc on our website today)

Meanwhile, we still are calling for citizen lobbying during August recess. 
Please contact us once you schedule a meeting so that we can connect our 
efforts. Be sure to address:
1. Congressional action on the DC initiative (news flash, DC Board of 
elections rejected MM petition, stay tuned to MPP.org for updated info on 
their fight to get it accepted: 
http://mpp.org/releases/nr080702.html)
2. HR 2592, States' Rights to Medical Marijuana act
3. the RAVE act

Call today to make appts with your representative. Check out their voting 
history & position on medical marijuana before the 
meeting.(http://mpp.org/USA/supporters.html 
has a good table for various markers) Call or write us if you need any 
materials or information. Try to put together varied contingents of 
supporters, including union members, health professionals, patients or 
potential patients, activists, teachers, police officers, etc.

Yesterday in the SF Bay Area, we had a wonderful Patients' Speak Out 
outside the federal courthouse during hearings of  5 medical marijuana 
defendants, and joined in our issue to a protest during an appearance by 
Dick Cheney.

Send us your updates on local actions to include on our website!

Hilary McQuie
Campaign Coordinator
Americans for Safe Access
1678 Shattuck Ave. #317
Berkeley, CA 94709
Phone: 510-486-8083
Fax: 510-486-8090
www.safeaccessnow.org
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 21:29:12 -0700
Subject: Canada: Amateur pilots helping police in marijuana scout

Newshawk: Canadian Media Awareness Project (http://www.mapinc.org/cmap/)
Source: Chatham This Week (CN ON)
Date: August 7, 2002
Website: http://www.bowesnet.com/ctw/
Address: 930 Richmond St., Chatham, Ont. N7M 5J5 Canada
Contact: peterepp@bowesnet.com
Copyright: 2002 Bowes Publishers Limited
Fax: (519) 351-7774
Author: Peter Epp

              Amateur pilots helping police in marijuana scout

For the second consecutive year, Crime Stoppers program will be actively
engaging aviation enthusiasts in Chatham-Kent's war on drugs.

George Sanderson, a co-ordinator for Crime Stoppers, confirms that the
program is reaching out to the local aviation community to help law
enforcement agencies locate marijuana that has been planted in the middle of
cornfields or at the edges of bushlots.

Entitled Operation Pot Spot, aviation enthusiasts are being asked to keep
their eyes peeled while flying over Chatham-Kent. In some cases, amateur
pilots are deploying global positioning systems (GPS) to precisely map
marijuana plantations. Police later use the GPS co-ordinate to find the
plantation and have it destroyed.

The additional eyes in the skies have paid off, Sanderson says. Police have
been informally using amateur pilots to scout marijuana for about the last
four years, and since that time about $2.5 million in marijuana has been
located in Chatham-Kent and subsequently destroyed.

"It's made a huge difference," he tells Chatham This Week. "The police use
their own aircraft, but it makes a difference if we can also use the
services of aviation enthusiasts. We're not asking they make a special trip;
we're just asking them to keep their eyes open while they're up in the sky."

And August represents a perfect opportunity for pot spotting. Sanderson says
marijuana plants are reaching their maturity and are becoming easier to be
observed from the air.

And he anticipates that Chatham-Kent's marijuana crop will be exceptional
this year.

"Marijuana is a bit like corn, in that it loves hot weather and lots
of rain, and we've had a lot of hot weather, and in the last two weeks,
we've had good rain. So I expect that these plants are growing and
developing exceptionally well."

Sanderson adds that marijuana cultivation in Chatham-Kent is usually
successful because of the region's excellent growing conditions.
"Chatham-Kent grows some of the best legitimate crops in Canada
and, unfortunately, Chatham-Kent also grows some of the best marijuana."

Those growing marijuana in Chatham-Kent's farm fields typically plant the
seedlings after a farmer has sown corn, and the corn is in its early stage
of development. Usually what happens is that the marijuana grower will walk
to the middle of a corn field, rip out some of the corn stalks, and
re-cultivate the area with marijuana. At the time, the farmer is unaware of
what's happening, unless he spies a strange vehicle parked at the edge of
the road. But Sanderson says the planting operation usually occurs at night.

He notes the marijuana is usually allowed to grow unattended. The "owner" of
the illegal plants may make a visit once a month. But the harvest begins to
loom in late August and early September, since the illegal grower wants to
harvest his or her marijuana before the corn is taken off. Sanderson says
Chatham-Kent's marijuana harvest is usually complete by mid-September.

Sometimes legitimate harvest conditions are exceptional and the corn is
harvested earlier. When that happens - as it did in early September 2000 -
farmers usually find large tracts of marijuana.

"Two years ago the harvest was very early, and I suppose it caught the
illegal growers off guard," Sanderson says. "We had a lot of calls from
farmers that year, calling to tell us that they had found some marijuana in
their fields."

Crime Stoppers estimates the value of a single marijuana plant at about
$1,000. In 1999, an amateur pilot led police to a field where over 100
plants were discovered and subsequently destroyed.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 21:30:33 -0700
Subject: Shasta, CA:  Medical marijuana user on 'quest for justice' 

From: "Shasta Patient's Alliance" 
Closing arguments will begin on Friday morning at the Shasta County
Courthouse, Redding, Ca !!
3rd floor
Dept 4

Online at www.redding.com

Medical marijuana user on 'quest for justice'

Maline Hazle
Record Searchlight

August 08, 2002 =97 2:17 a.m.
Almost three years after his acquittal on a charge of growing marijuana for=

sale, medicinal marijuana user Richard Levin took the witness stand
Wednesday to detail his arrest and treatment at the Shasta County Jail.
Levin, 52, and his wife, Kim, 38, both of Redding, are suing Shasta County=

and two sheriff's deputies for wrongful arrest and, in his case,
mistreatment at the Redding jail.

Earlier defendants in the suit included an unnamed jail doctor and Shasta
County District Attorney McGregor Scott, but they were dropped from the
suit before testimony began late last week.

Presiding over the trial is a visiting Superior Court judge from Los
Angeles, Carol S. Koppel. She was assigned to the case after most Shasta
County Superior Court judges recused themselves.

The Levins are asking for attorney's fees, court costs and other
unspecified damages.

"This didn't start out as a quest for money," Richard Levin said as he left=

the courtroom Wednesday. "It started out as a quest for justice."

In Wednesday's testimony Levin told the nine-woman, three-man jury about
the physical problems that he said led him to substitute marijuana for a
plethora of pain medications and muscle relaxers.

He also admitted that he had occasionally used marijuana before the
devastating 1993 fall that left him what he said one doctor called a
"walking paraplegic."

A carpenter and contractor, Levin was working on a job in Chester when he
slipped on an icy roof and slid off the edge, falling three stories and
landing on his back atop a mound of frozen snow, he testified.

The fall broke his back and caused extensive nerve damage, he said.

After four surgeries he still is unable to urinate without inserting a
catheter, he said. His bowel muscle doesn't work and he relies on "walking=

and gravity" and digital muscle stimulation. His leg muscles spasm and
twitch. He suffers from depression.

By 1997, Levin said, he realized he was unlikely ever to return to work=
 again.

But the pain continued and the pain prescriptions made him ill, he said. He=

had dropped almost 30 pounds. Then, in 1995, he tried marijuana and it
worked, Levin said.

"It helped with my appetite, it kept the nausea down . . . and most
important, it helped me sleep," he said.

Now Levin said the only drug he takes is a pill for hypertension.

After California voters passed the Compassionate Use Act in 1996, Levin
said he talked to his doctor about permission to use marijuana.

"He said 'what do I write and how do you fill it,' " Levin recalled. "The
law had just passed and nobody knew."

But Levin said he read Proposition 215 and learned that it allowed medical=

marijuana use with written or oral approval from a doctor and he had that
oral permission.

He began growing marijuana in his back yard, he said, hiding the seedlings=

in opaque "grow boxes," then transplanting them at a friend's place in
Shingletown.

Just after 7 a.m. on May 6, 1998, sheriff's deputies Tom Barner and Chester=

Ashmun, who are named in the lawsuit, and three other deputies pounded on
his front door, Levin said.

The deputies told him they were looking for stolen or embezzled property
and waved two pieces of paper with no judge's signature, Levin said.

One of them went to the back yard and within two minutes returned to report=

that 41 marijuana plants were growing there.

They handcuffed Levin, searched the house and found more than a pound of
marijuana in his safe.

Levin said he bought the packages from a friend in San Diego a few weeks
earlier and most of what he bought was still packaged as it was when he
received it.

He asked the deputies to call his doctor, telling them he used marijuana
medicinally, Levin said, but Ashmun replied that he didn't like the law and=

it hadn't been approved by Shasta County voters.

Levin said he asked repeatedly to be allowed to take pain medication and
his catheters to jail with him, explaining his condition to every deputy
and authority he encountered.

He was told he would get what he needed at the jail, he said.

But when he talked to an unidentified medical worker at the jail, Levin
said, he learned that only vinyl catheters were available. He needs rubber=

catheters, which he must order specially, he said.

Instead of answering his requests for medical care, deputies put him in a
solitary cell for more than a day and then refused to give him a pencil to=

fill out a request for medical aid, calling it a "dangerous object," he
said. He got a new form and a pencil later the next day when he was
transferred to a regular jail floor, he said.

Levin said he was unable to urinate for three days and suffered from
impacted bowels and a bleeding rectum by the time he was released from jail=

three days later.

John Hagar, the San Francisco attorney hired by Shasta County to defend
against the suit, questioned Levin about several jail forms that listed his=

medical ailments and one that apparently indicated that Levin received sick=

call attention on the very day he was booked.

But Levin's attorney, William Simpich of Oakland, came back with questions
that showed Levin's name was the last name on the sick call list and the
time noted on the form was 8 a.m. =97 more than an hour before Levin was booked.

Levin will return to the stand today to answer questions submitted by jurors.

Reporter Maline Hazle can be reached at 225-8266 or at mhazle@redding.com.


------------------------------
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 22:17:08 -0700
Subject: Tell Bryan Epis You Care

       You may know that Sacramento County Jail is a notorious institution,
and is on Amnesty International's watch list. Butte County's Bryan Epis is
imprisoned in the Sacramento jail until his sentencing on federal felony
charges that carry a minimum of 10 years in prison.
       Bryan will attempt to bail out of jail after his Aug. 26 sentencing,
once he appeals his conviction. But that's no certainty. In the meantime,
activists who can spare the time should drop Bryan a note of encouragement.
Here's the address.
     Bryan Epis
     # 3311197 7E-2-26B
     651 I Street
     Sacramento, CA  95814




------------------------------
Date: Fri, 09 Aug 2002 08:22:32 -0700
Subject: HI: Advocate Will Go To Court To Pick Up Pot

Newshawk: The War on Drugs IS Terrorism
Pubdate: Thu,  8 Aug 2002
Source: Honolulu Star-Bulletin (HI)
Contact: letters@starbulletin.com
Copyright: 2002 Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Website: http://www.starbulletin.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/196
Author: Crystal Kua
Note: For more on medical cannabis and cannabis eradication in Hawaii go to
http://www.mapinc.org/areas/Hawaii

ADVOCATE WILL GO TO COURT TO PICK UP POT

A Felony Sentencing, However, Will Keep Adler Out Of This Year's Race For
Governor

Jonathan Adler, a Big Island medical marijuana advocate and Natural Law
Party candidate for governor, has another court date Monday.

But this time, he's going there to pick up about an ounce of marijuana that
a state judge has ordered returned to him.

Adler, 50, said he has an 8 a.m. appointment at Hilo District Court to pick
up his "personal property" after District Judge Jeffrey Choi granted Adler's
motion for the return of a Tupperware container and the marijuana. A court
clerk confirmed the judge's order for return of the marijuana.

In October, Adler was jailed for missing a pretrial conference on another
charge.

Adler asked police to call his wife so she could bring his legal Marinol
pills, containing synthetic tetrahydrocannabinol, the active substance in
marijuana. But police called her to bring his "medication," and she instead
mistakenly brought marijuana, which he kept in a plastic container, he said.
"It was my superkiller stash."

His wife was arrested and charged for misdemeanor possession and then
released. Nuan Adler was convicted July 11 of the charge and fined $25.

"Then we asked for the property to be returned, and I was told in open court
by Judge Choi to file a motion and I did," Jonathan Adler said.

A hearing on the motion was held Tuesday. Adler, who holds a state medical
marijuana card which allows him to possess among other things an ounce of
dried marijuana for medical reasons, argued that he was the legal owner of
the marijuana within the limitations allowed him by law.

"(The judge) couldn't come up with any reason to keep me from retrieving my
personal property," Adler said. "The judge -- 'very reluctantly' is the term
- -- granted the motion and ordered the medicine in question and the
Tupperware be returned."

This is the second time Adler has had marijuana given back to him by
authorities.

When he was jailed in October, Adler took with him to jail a film canister
containing a small amount marijuana, which along with the other belongings
on him was taken away while he was in custody.

After he was released from jail, the marijuana and his other effects were
returned to him.

Last month, Big Island police returned 1.5 ounces of marijuana seized during
a raid in Kona to three medical marijuana users.

Adler is awaiting an Aug. 26 sentencing after a Circuit Court judge found
him guilty of commercial promotion of marijuana for possessing 89 marijuana
plants and marijuana paraphernalia in 1998. Adler argued he had a religious
right to use the marijuana.

State election officials said they will be monitoring the case because Adler
will not be able to run for office once he is sentenced for the felony.

Adler also faces a jury trial Sept. 3 for allegedly possessing 55 marijuana
plants in 1999.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 09 Aug 2002 08:23:31 -0700
Subject: CA: Medical Marijuana User On 'Quest For Justice'

Newshawk: The War on Drugs IS Terrorism
Pubdate: Thu,  8 Aug 2002
Source: Redding Record Searchlight (CA)
Contact: letters@redding.com
Copyright: 2002 Record Searchlight - The E.W. Scripps Co.
Website: http://www.redding.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/360
Author: Maline Hazle
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

MEDICAL MARIJUANA USER ON 'QUEST FOR JUSTICE'

Almost three years after his acquittal on a charge of growing marijuana for
sale, medicinal marijuana user Richard Levin took the witness stand
Wednesday to detail his arrest and treatment at the Shasta County Jail.
Levin, 52, and his wife, Kim, 38, both of Redding, are suing Shasta County
and two sheriff's deputies for wrongful arrest and, in his case,
mistreatment at the Redding jail.

Earlier defendants in the suit included an unnamed jail doctor and Shasta
County District Attorney McGregor Scott, but they were dropped from the suit
before testimony began late last week.

Presiding over the trial is a visiting Superior Court judge from Los
Angeles, Carol S. Koppel. She was assigned to the case after most Shasta
County Superior Court judges recused themselves.

The Levins are asking for attorney's fees, court costs and other unspecified
damages.

"This didn't start out as a quest for money," Richard Levin said as he left
the courtroom Wednesday. "It started out as a quest for justice."

In Wednesday's testimony Levin told the nine-woman, three-man jury about the
physical problems that he said led him to substitute marijuana for a
plethora of pain medications and muscle relaxers.

He also admitted that he had occasionally used marijuana before the
devastating 1993 fall that left him what he said one doctor called a
"walking paraplegic."

A carpenter and contractor, Levin was working on a job in Chester when he
slipped on an icy roof and slid off the edge, falling three stories and
landing on his back atop a mound of frozen snow, he testified.

The fall broke his back and caused extensive nerve damage, he said.

After four surgeries he still is unable to urinate without inserting a
catheter, he said. His bowel muscle doesn't work and he relies on "walking
and gravity" and digital muscle stimulation. His leg muscles spasm and
twitch. He suffers from depression.

By 1997, Levin said, he realized he was unlikely ever to return to work
again.

But the pain continued and the pain prescriptions made him ill, he said. He
had dropped almost 30 pounds. Then, in 1995, he tried marijuana and it
worked, Levin said.

"It helped with my appetite, it kept the nausea down . . . and most
important, it helped me sleep," he said.

Now Levin said the only drug he takes is a pill for hypertension.

After California voters passed the Compassionate Use Act in 1996, Levin said
he talked to his doctor about permission to use marijuana.

"He said 'what do I write and how do you fill it,' " Levin recalled. "The
law had just passed and nobody knew."

But Levin said he read Proposition 215 and learned that it allowed medical
marijuana use with written or oral approval from a doctor and he had that
oral permission.

He began growing marijuana in his back yard, he said, hiding the seedlings
in opaque "grow boxes," then transplanting them at a friend's place in
Shingletown.

Just after 7 a.m. on May 6, 1998, sheriff's deputies Tom Barner and Chester
Ashmun, who are named in the lawsuit, and three other deputies pounded on
his front door, Levin said.

The deputies told him they were looking for stolen or embezzled property and
waved two pieces of paper with no judge's signature, Levin said.

One of them went to the back yard and within two minutes returned to report
that 41 marijuana plants were growing there.

They handcuffed Levin, searched the house and found more than a pound of
marijuana in his safe.

Levin said he bought the packages from a friend in San Diego a few weeks
earlier and most of what he bought was still packaged as it was when he
received it.

He asked the deputies to call his doctor, telling them he used marijuana
medicinally, Levin said, but Ashmun replied that he didn't like the law and
it hadn't been approved by Shasta County voters.

Levin said he asked repeatedly to be allowed to take pain medication and his
catheters to jail with him, explaining his condition to every deputy and
authority he encountered.

He was told he would get what he needed at the jail, he said.

But when he talked to an unidentified medical worker at the jail, Levin
said, he learned that only vinyl catheters were available. He needs rubber
catheters, which he must order specially, he said.

Instead of answering his requests for medical care, deputies put him in a
solitary cell for more than a day and then refused to give him a pencil to
fill out a request for medical aid, calling it a "dangerous object," he
said. He got a new form and a pencil later the next day when he was
transferred to a regular jail floor, he said.

Levin said he was unable to urinate for three days and suffered from
impacted bowels and a bleeding rectum by the time he was released from jail
three days later.

John Hagar, the San Francisco attorney hired by Shasta County to defend
against the suit, questioned Levin about several jail forms that listed his
medical ailments and one that apparently indicated that Levin received sick
call attention on the very day he was booked.

But Levin's attorney, William Simpich of Oakland, came back with questions
that showed Levin's name was the last name on the sick call list and the
time noted on the form was 8 a.m. -- more than an hour before Levin was
booked.

Levin will return to the stand today to answer questions submitted by
jurors.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 09 Aug 2002 08:25:38 -0700
Subject: US: Experimenting With Marijuana

Aug. 9, 2002

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jacobsullum/js20020809.shtml

Experimenting with marijuana

By Jacob Sullum

In a recent ABC News special, John Stossel interviews New York City police 
officers who are watching a protest by opponents of the war on drugs, 
waiting to catch anyone who dares to light up a joint. When he asks if 
there might be a better use of their time, they admit that pot smokers are 
hardly a public menace.

Stossel presses the issue: Then why is marijuana illegal? One cop shrugs, 
saying he just enforces the law; he doesn't write it.

This fall in Nevada, police officers will have a chance, along with their 
fellow citizens, to rewrite the law that forces them to arrest marijuana 
users. They will vote on Question 9, a proposed constitutional amendment 
that would legalize possession of up to three ounces of marijuana by adults.

The recent endorsement of the measure by the state's largest police 
organization, the Nevada Conference of Police and Sheriffs (NCOPS), has 
provoked a public outcry that may prompt the group to reconsider. But the 
argument that convinced NCOPS remains sound.

"As a former law enforcement officer," said NCOPS President Andy Anderson, 
"I know that a simple marijuana arrest (could) take me off the street for 
several hours and sometimes for over half my shift. . . . We could better 
spend our time responding to more life-threatening and serious incidents. . 
. . Passage of Question 9 will ensure that more cops are on the streets to 
protect our citizens from violent crime and the threat of terrorism."

The flip side of this message is that otherwise law-abiding people who 
smoke marijuana do not deserve to be arrested, jailed or fined. As the Las 
Vegas Review-Journal, the state's largest newspaper, put it in a July 7 
editorial, "the measure would end the needless harassment of individuals 
who peacefully and privately use marijuana."

Polls indicate that voters are evenly divided on the initiative, which 
would allow the sale of marijuana in state-licensed shops. Even if it 
passes this year and in 2004 (as required for a constitutional amendment), 
that won't be the only hurdle. As Keith Stroup, executive director of the 
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, observes, "It is 
highly unlikely the federal government would allow a state to create a 
legal market for the sale of drugs."

Yet federal drug czar John Walters, who spoke out against the initiative in 
a visit to Las Vegas last month, indicated that the national government 
would not try to impose its will on Nevada. "That's not our intent," he 
said. "People have a right to make their own decisions."

Presumably Walters was referring to a choice of drug policies, not of 
intoxicants, but even that concession was surprising. "I don't believe 
you'll see federal officials coming into (Nevada) to enforce possession 
laws," he said.

Although Walters suggested that such forbearance would be voluntary, the 
truth is that federal officials have no authority to nab pot smokers in 
Nevada. The idea that they do is based on an egregious misreading of the 
U.S. Constitution.

In 1917, when Congress decided to ban alcohol, it recognized that a 
constitutional amendment would be required. It thereby acknowledged that 
the only powers it had were those enumerated in the Constitution.

Two decades later, when it decided to ban marijuana, Congress took a 
sneakier approach. It pretended it was passing a revenue measure, the 
Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.

By the time marijuana was included in the Controlled Substances Act of 
1970, the U.S. Supreme Court had virtually obliterated the concept of 
enumerated powers. It interpreted Congress's power to "regulate Commerce . 
. . among the several States" so broadly that it could cover almost anything.

In recent years, the Supreme Court has tried to put limits on this license 
to meddle. In 1995, for example, it ruled that a federal ban on possessing 
a gun within 1,000 feet of a school was not authorized by the Commerce Clause.

Since then, the Court has not directly addressed the constitutionality of 
the federal ban on marijuana possession. If it did, it would probably find 
an excuse to uphold the law. But if bringing a gun to school is not a 
federal matter, it's hard to see why keeping marijuana at home is.

Among other things, the distinction between state and federal powers allows 
a diversity of policies, making it easier to correct errors. If Question 9 
passes, other states can learn from Nevada's experiment in tolerance.


CRRH is working to regulate and tax the sale of cannabis to adults like 
alcohol, allow doctors to recommend cannabis through pharmacies and restore 
the unregulated production of industrial hemp.

*Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp*
mail:     CRRH ; P.O. Box 86741 ; Portland, OR 97286 USA
email:   crrh@crrh.org
phone:  (503) 235-4606
fax:       (503) 235-0120
web:     http://www.crrh.org/

------------------------------
End of Restore-Digest V2002 #160
********************************