Pubdate: Tue, 30 Jan 2001
Source: Village Voice (NY)
Copyright: 2001 Village Voice Media, Inc
Contact:  36 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003
Feedback: http://www.villagevoice.com/aboutus/contact.shtml
Website: http://www.villagevoice.com/
Author:  Kevin Nelson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

THE YEAR IN POT

Twelve Months in the Life of Marijuana Prohibition

One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces 
is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever 
wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks 
down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick 
and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in 
bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the 
prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm 
to far more people than marijuana ever could. --Richard Cowan, former head 
of NORML, now editor of Marijuana News. http://www.marijuananews.com/

Estimated U.S. deaths in 2000 attributed to:

tobacco: 400,000 alcohol: 110,000 prescription drugs: 100,000 suicide: 
30,000 murder: 15,000 aspirin and related over-the-counter painkillers: 
7600 marijuana: 0

Number of americans arrested since 1965 on marijuana-related charges: over 
11 million

February 9: Arizona--Deborah Lynn Quinn, 39, born with no arms or legs, is 
sentenced to one year in Arizona prison for marijuana possession after 
violating probation on a previous drug offense--attempted sale of 4 grams 
of marijuana to a police informant for $20. Quinn will require 
around-the-clock care for feeding, bathing, and hygiene.

February 15: The United States' prison and jail population surpasses 2 
million people. Prisons are one of the fastest-growing expenses of 
government. It costs about $100,000 to build a single prison cell and about 
$24,000 per year to house an individual prisoner. Some 1.3 million U.S. 
inmates are currently serving time for nonviolent offenses. One-quarter of 
the world's prisoners are now incarcerated in the "land of the free."

February 18: Atlanta--Louis E. Covar Jr., 51, a quadriplegic, paralyzed 
from the neck down in a diving accident on July 4, 1967, who says he uses 
marijuana to relieve the pain from muscle spasms in his neck, is sentenced 
to seven years in prison after being accused of selling marijuana out of 
his home. Covar denies the charge, insisting the small amount seized (one 
and a quarter ounces) was for his personal medicinal use. According to the 
Georgia Department of Corrections, the special care Covar needs will cost 
$258.33 a day--or more than 660,000 if he serves his full seven years. A 
typical prisoner costs taxpayers $47.63 per day.

February 23: The Hawaii Medical Association comes out against the pending 
state medical marijuana initiative. Heidi Singh, HMA's director of 
legislative and government affairs, says more studies should be done, and 
that "physicians cannot in good faith recommend a drug therapy without 
clinical evidence to back it up."

February 28: Madrid, Spain--The chemical in marijuana that produces a high 
shows promise as a weapon against deadly brain tumors, according to Spanish 
scientists. In a study on rats, a team from Complutense University and 
Autonoma University in Madrid found that one of marijuana's active 
ingredients, THC, eliminated tumor cells in advanced cases of glioma, a 
quick-killing cancer for which there is currently no effective treatment. 
The researchers found that pumping THC into the tumors cleared the cancer 
in more than a third of the test rats. The drug prolonged the life of 
another third by up to 40 days, but was ineffective in the rest. The cancer 
did not recur in any of the survivors.

March 2: Marijuana-like compounds ease tremors in mice with a condition 
similar to multiple sclerosis, researchers say in a study, published in the 
British journal Nature, that appears to corroborate patients' claims that 
pot helps them deal with the disease.

March 13: Mondovi, Wisconsin--Police raid the home of Jacki Rickert at 3:30 
a.m. and seize a small amount of marijuana. Rickert, 49, who is 
wheelchair-bound and weighs 90 pounds, suffers from Ehlers-Danos syndrome 
and reflexive sympathetic dystrophy, bone and muscle diseases respectively. 
She smokes marijuana to ease her pain and strengthen her appetite. Rickert 
was promised but later denied entrance to the federal Investigative New 
Drug program, which distributes a tin of 300 pre-rolled marijuana 
cigarettes to eight legally protected American citizens each month.

Rickert's daughter, Tammy, claims the police raid has left her mother a 
wreck. "She's tiny, frail," Tammy said. "She's not out to hurt anybody. 
She's trying to maintain some semblance of a quality of life. The 
marijuana, which the government pretty much told her she could use, helps a 
little. This whole thing is unbelievable."

March 16: New York City--An unarmed black security guard, Patrick 
Dorismond, is shot dead by undercover New York City police officers 
conducting a marijuana "buy-and-bust." Two plainclothes detectives approach 
Dorismond, asking if he will sell them "some weed." Dorismond rebuffs the 
men, a scuffle ensues, and a third officer, Anthony Vasquez, fires a single 
bullet into Dorismond's chest. No drugs or other contraband is found on 
Dorismond's body. The shooting is the third time in 13 months plainclothes 
New York City police officers kill an unarmed black man.

Under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, marijuana arrests have risen from 720 in 1992 
to 59,945 in the first 11 months of 2000.

April 1: Canada's premier national newspaper, The National Post, 
editorializes in favor of an eventual legalization of marijuana: "Canada's 
police, judges, and prosecutors have better things to do with their time 
than track down those who produce and consume a substance no more dangerous 
than alcohol and tobacco. We should begin the decriminalization of 
marijuana by immediately reducing the punishments that can be imposed for 
its possession to modest fines--and start thinking about how to regulate 
its use."

April 25: The Hawaii State Senate passes medical marijuana legislation, 
joining California, Oregon, Washington, Maine, Alaska, Arizona, and the 
District of Columbia in shielding medical marijuana patients from criminal 
prosecution.

June 9: Human Rights Watch releases a study showing that Illinois has the 
worst racial disparity among jailed drug offenders of any state in the 
nation. Black men in Illinois are 57 times more likely than white men to be 
sent to prison on drug charges, and blacks make up 90 percent of all 
drug-related prison admissions. Though federal studies show that nationwide 
white drug users outnumber black drug users 5 to 1, blacks make up about 62 
percent of prisoners incarcerated on drug charges, compared with 36 percent 
for whites.

June 14: Los Angeles--Bestselling author, cancer and AIDS patient, and 
high-profile medical marijuana activist Peter McWilliams is found dead in 
his home. McWilliams, barred by a federal court order from using marijuana 
to counteract the extreme nausea caused by his AIDS drugs, is found slumped 
on his bathroom floor, choked to death on vomit. His federal prosecutors 
say they are "saddened by his death."

McWilliams's books include How to Heal Depression; Getting Over the Loss of 
a Love; Life 101; and Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of 
Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country.

July 31: Ontario, Canada--Ontario's top court rules unanimously (3-0) that 
Canada's law making marijuana possession a crime is unconstitutional, 
because it does not take into account the needs of medical marijuana 
patients. The judges allow the current law to remain in effect for another 
12 months, to permit Parliament to rewrite it. However, if the Canadian 
government fails to set up a medical marijuana distribution program by July 
31, 2001, all marijuana laws in Canada will be struck down.

August 16: Los Angeles--The American Medical Marijuana Association reports 
that medical marijuana patient, grower, and author of How to Grow Medical 
Marijuana Todd McCormick, confined to federal prison while appealing his 
case, has been sent to solitary confinement. Todd has severe spinal 
problems that have caused him "unbearable" pain, according to his mother, 
Ann McCormick. She says Todd went to the medical office and requested the 
synthetic form of marijuana, Marinol, produced by Unimed Pharmaceuticals, 
which he had been taking before his incarceration. One day after Todd asked 
for the easily prescribed drug, the feds ordered he be drug tested. When 
the results came back positive for marijuana, Todd was placed in solitary 
confinement.

August 20: Seattle--A crowd estimated at 100,000 gathers at Myrtle Edwards 
Park for Hempfest 2000, calling for the legalization of marijuana for 
personal and medical use, as well as legalization of hemp for 
environmentally sustainable industrial uses. The event is the largest of 
its kind in the world, with no arrests reported.

September 8: Santa Fe--Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader joins 
New Mexico's Republican governor, Gary Johnson, in criticizing the nation's 
war on drugs, calling for marijuana legalization and reform of what Nader 
calls "self-defeating and antiquated" drug laws. Rehabilitation gives a far 
better payoff than "criminalizing and militarizing the situation," Nader 
says at a news conference. "Study after study has shown that, and yet 
somehow it doesn't get through to federal policy."

October 16: The FBI releases its 1999 Uniform Crime Report. There was a 
record total of 704,812 U.S. marijuana arrests in 1999, or one every 45 
seconds. Of those arrests, 620,541 (88 percent) were for simple marijuana 
possession, and 84,271 (12 percent) were for sales or cultivation. Through 
1999, there were 4,175,357 marijuana arrests under the Clinton 
administration, a record for any U.S. presidency.

November 7, election day: Voters across the United States pass sweeping 
drug law reform initiatives. In California, despite united opposition from 
Governor Gray Davis, Attorney General Bill Lockyer, Senator Dianne 
Feinstein, statewide police associations, and prison guard unions, citizens 
vote 61 percent to 39 percent to pass Proposition 36, diverting nonviolent 
drug offenders into treatment rather than prison for first and second 
offenses. Proponents claim the move will save the state $150 million 
annually and eliminate the need for a new state prison. Mendocino County 
voters approve Measure G by a 58-42 margin, decriminalizing personal use 
and the growing of up to 25 marijuana plants.

Nevadans vote 65 percent to 35 percent to pass Question 9, allowing 
qualified patients to possess marijuana for medicinal purposes. In 
response, a self-appointed task force of state health care officials, the 
Nevada Medical Marijuana Initiative Work Group, moves to limit use of the 
drug to research studies, adding months if not years to approval time.

By a 53-47 margin, Colorado voters pass Amendment 20, allowing qualified 
patients to possess up to two ounces of marijuana and grow up to six 
plants. Tom Strickland, U.S. attorney for Colorado, says that his office 
will continue to "aggressively enforce federal drug laws, including the 
prohibition of marijuana, regardless of the passage of this ballot initiative."

Utahans, by a margin of 69-31, pass Initiative B, denying government 
agencies the right to seize property from individuals before they are 
convicted of a crime.

Oregonians pass a similar property-seizure reform initiative, Measure 
3--the Oregon Property Protection Act--by a margin of 67-33. Measure 3 
diverts drug forfeiture proceeds from police treasuries into drug treatment 
programs.

November 27: In U.S. v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, 00-151, the 
Supreme Court takes on the issue of whether "medical necessity" is an 
acceptable defense against the federal law that makes marijuana 
distribution a crime. A decision is expected by June 2001.

December 6: Brussels, Belgium--Liberal prime minister Guy Verhofstadt and a 
coalition of Liberals, Socialists, and Greens vote to end marijuana 
prohibition. As of January 1, 2001, Belgium, joining Holland in embracing 
tolerance, will "exempt from punishment possession, consumption, and trade 
of up to five grams hashish or marijuana." Belgium is the seat of the 
European Union.

December 6: In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine released today, 
President Bill Clinton is asked if he thinks "people should go to jail for 
using or even selling small amounts of marijuana." Clinton replies, "I 
think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some 
places, and should be." Clinton adds, "We really need a reexamination of 
our entire policy on imprisonment. A lot of people are in prison because 
they have drug problems or alcohol problems and too many of them are 
getting out--particularly out of state systems--without treatment, without 
education, without skills, without serious efforts at job placement."
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