PARIS - Former Festina team sporting director Bruno Roussel and masseur Willy Voet are appealing against suspensions of five and three years respectively from cycling. Lawyers for the two men, caught up in the Tour de France doping scandal in July, said on Friday night they were lodging the appeals with the French Cycling Federation (FFC), whose disciplinary committee handed down the suspensions. The FFC has not officially announced the suspensions, having simply notified both men by letter. Roussel, who admitted in July that his team carried out organised doping, is contesting the legitimacy of the FFC to ban him rather than the sanction as such, the lawyers said. [continues 99 words]
*THE LANCET* PLEADS FOR MODERATE TOLERANCE FOR CANNABIS. Research leads the British weekly to pronounce the drug less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. A committee of the House of Lords supports its use for persons at the end of life. "IT would be reasonable to think that the cannabis is less a threat for health that alcohol and tobacco." The prestigious weekly scientific magazine The Lancet published in its last issue, dated of the 14th of November, an editorial that proposes a new approach on the debate on the legal status of this drug. [continues 428 words]
Synthetic "recreational" illegal drugs invade European capitals. Paris: 100 francs. London: 8 Pounds Sterling. Madrid: 2,000 pesetas:.. With such low prices in these European capitals, anybody can buy a pill of ecstasy. Five to six times less expensive than a gram of cocaine, this hallucinogenic amphetamine symbolizes the new age of the so-called "recreational" drugs. In just a few years ecstasy has become the absolute leader of the new synthetic illegal drugs. Its production could radically change the situation of the traffic in narcotics. Anti-narcotics forces find themselves faced with a surprising situation: the drugs are manufactured in Europe (Netherlands and other nothern countries) for an international distribution, including Asia, the land of opium: A reversal of tradition, it would seem. [continues 515 words]
THE Tour de France tried to rise above the anger and recriminations of a summer tainted by drugs scandals by announcing at the launch of the 1999 route in Paris a series of radical measures in the hope of a dope-free future. In a dramatic presentation ceremony both Jean-Marie Leblanc, the race director, and Jean-Claude Killy, president of the Tour de France, called for a new scandal-free era after the humiliation of a year when the race was nearly abandoned. [continues 546 words]
FRENCH police seized lip conditioner, hand oil and elbow grease containing hemp seed oil from a Body Shop store - because they claim the products encourage drug use. Body Shop founder Anita Roddick yesterday said she was "amazed" by the action of gendarmes who entered her shop in Aix-en-Provence and took products from the Hemp range, as well as promotional material. Ms Roddick said: "You'd have to smoke a hemp joint the size of a telphone pole to get the least buzz and you'd die from carbon monoxide first. [continues 95 words]
THE Body Shop may be prosecuted for promoting drug use after French police raided a branch of the ecologically friendly retail group in Aix-en-Provence. They seized stocks of hand lotion, lip conditioner and body oil from the company's new hemp product range, claiming that they encouraged the use of cannabis. The Body Shop products are made with industrial-grade hemp seed oil extracted from the hemp plant, which is part of the cannabis family. The oil does contain THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the compound that provides the "high" from marijuana, but only in negligible quantities. [continues 246 words]
Spectators Cannot Admire Champions Who Win by Fraudulent Means PARIS---Perhaps Michelle SmithDe Bruin is guilty of tampering with her own urine samples. Perhaps not. Whatever the result of her appeal in the courts, whatever the merits of her four-year ban from swimming, international sport is unquestionably guilty. The use of banned performance-enhancing drugs by elite athletes is clearly widespread, maybe even close to universal in some sports. For too many years and too many Olympiads, the rewards have been too great and the risk of getting caught too slight to dissuade would-be medalists. [continues 992 words]
'The IOC and UCI might consider whether taking a substance that can correct a physiological inequality should be considered as doping' Last week's Tour de France cycle race saw a furore about the use of epoetin (recombinant erythropoietin), which enhances packed-cell volume (PCV). The Union Cycliste Internationale allows an upper limit of PCV of 050, but JJM Marx and PCJ Vergouwen's results this week cast doubt on the validity of this cutoff. PCV values above 050 were found in three of 245 measurements in elite athletes who denied use any kind of doping and in four of 278 measurements from non-athlete controls. The fear is that some athletes whose PCV exceeds this amount might be banned unjustly from their sport. - --- Checked-by: Melodi Cornett [end]
"The Tour de France: a broken legend" shrilled Le Monde's headline. "Tour de Farce" is how others put it. The field in this year's gruelling 21-day cycling race was decimated by drug raids, inquiries, and arrests by the French police, and walkouts by some of the teams. The race itself saw sit-down strikes and go-slows by the cyclists, voting with their pedals. The first raid was 3 days before the tour began, a team masseur being stopped at the France-Belgium border with a car-load of doping products, including epoetin (recombinant erythropoietin). The doping raids and inquiries then accelerated like a racing team itself, with hotel rooms searched and riders forced to give samples of urine, blood, and hair. Cyclists and team officials, including doctors, are waiting to be charged or questioned further by the French authorities. [continues 601 words]
THE real winner of the 1998 Tour de France did not wear the yellow jersey once during the competition. She was not even riding; but from her office in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, Marie-Georqe Buffet, the Communist youth and sports minister, triumphed in her year-long battle against illegal drug use in sport. She had said she wanted the Tour to reach its conclusion. "When a patient is ill, you do not kill him, you try to find a cure," she said. But it was her diagnosis and her decision to use the world's premier cycling race to draw attention to doping that nearly finished it off. [continues 455 words]
The astonishing advocacy of performance-enhancing drugs in sport by Juan Antonio Samaranch, the International Olympics Committee president, highlights his successful campaign earlier this year to have cannabis added to the list of drugs prohibited for Olympic athletes. He now excepts only those "performance-enhancing drugs that may cause permanent harm to the athlete". As cannabis is neither performance-enhancing nor harmful to the individual user, just what exactly was the relevance of that ban? GERARD MULHOLLAND CHEVILLY-LARUE, FRANCE [end]
REIMS, France---A day after the Tour de France ended, police questioned 14 members of the TVM team. Six cyclists, along with eight team staff members, were questioned Monday morning in Reims, northeast of Paris. Already the team director, Cees Priern, its doctor, Andrei Mikhailov, and Joahnnes Moors, a masseur, had been placed under formal investigation --- a step short of being formally charged---on doping charges. The six riders---Jeroen Blijlevens, Steven De Jongh, Servais Knaven, Bart Voskamp, Sergei Ivanov and Sergei Outschakov---made no comment as they entered the police station. [continues 219 words]
AIX-LES-BAINS, France---High on the first climb in the Tour de France on Wednesday, Greg LeMond was waiting to watch the race go by and trying to understand why it was more than an hour behind schedule until he was told about the two stoppages by the riders. "I believe they're.protesting that it's gotten to be kind of a witch hunt," said the American, who won the Tour in 1986, 1989 and 1990. Now 37 years old and retired from the sport, LeMond was accompanying a 16-person tourist group that has been cycling over some of the Tour's roads before and after daily stages. [continues 364 words]
Outraged by drug investigation, they slow pace so much Jalabert withdraws. Officials void results. PARIS--Dogged by an unprecedented drug scandal, the riders in the Tour de France mutinied Wednesday, slowing their pace to an amble and threatening to reduce the 1998 edition of the summer cycling classic to a fiasco. A disgusted Laurent Jalabert, one of the world's top cyclists, withdrew from the race along with the rest of the riders from the Spanish ONCE team. Two other squads, Banesto of Spain and Riso Scotti of Italy, also threw in the towel. [continues 665 words]
LILLE, France---Rodolfo Massi, a Tour de France cyclist with the Casino team, and Nicolas Terrados, the doctor for the ONCE team, were charged in court Friday night following a hearing before Judge Patrick Keil, who is heading one of the Tour drugs inquiries. Both men were detained by French police Wednesday night. They have been charged under the 1989 drug act. Massi, a member of the Casino team, was the leader in the King of the Mountains category at the time of his arrest. He faces additional charges of importing, distributing and transferring "poisonous substances." [continues 237 words]
Angry Over Hotel Raid, Riders Stage Slowdown A1X-LES-BAINS, France --- The Tour de France, plagued by drug scandals, was stopped twice Wednesday by rider protests and faced a premature end for the first time in its 95-year history. The riders agreed to start Thursday only if the French police modify their tactics in a spreading investigation of some of the 21 teams in the world's greatest bicycle race. Not until Jean-Marie Leblanc, the director of the race consulted with government officials and promised a change in police methods---including questioning in team hotels rather than police stations---did the riders call off their second sit-down. [continues 1040 words]
Triumph on World Cup stage forgotten as France fails the dope test International competition is getting a rough ride among both the cyclists and the grand masters. AS CHARLES Dickens once said of another momentous period in French history: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." There was always going to be a hangover after the revolutionary zeal of the country's World Cup victory celebrations on Bastille Day. And this summer's sporting party has been well and truly spoiled by the Tour de France, the world's greatest cycle race, which has been blighted by riders' strikes and allegations of drug-taking. [continues 830 words]
LILLE, France---Rodolfo Massi, a Tour de France cyclist with the Casino tearn, and Nicolas Terrados, the doctor for the ONCE team, were charged in court Friday night following a hearing before Judge Patrick Keil, who is heading one of the Tour drugs inquiries. Both men were detained by French police Wednesday night. They have been charged under the 1989 drug act. Massi, a member of the Casino team, was the leader in the King of the Mountains category at the time of his arrest. He faces additional charges of importing, distributing and transferring "poisonous substances." [continues 236 words]
NEUCHATEL, Switzerland (AP) - After one of the most turbulent days in its history, the Tour de France lost two more teams Thursday in its growing drug scandal. Amid the bucolic surroundings of Switzerland, the athletes couldn't escape the news that the teams withdrew to protest police behavior. Also, investigators for the first time prevented a cyclist from competing after finding drugs in his possession. When the 18th stage was over, Tom Steels of Belgium had won, but the overall standings remained the same. Italy's Marco Pantani retained the yellow jersey, Bobby Julich of the United States was second, and last year's winner, Jan Ullrich of Germany, was third. [continues 503 words]
THE Tour de France, teetering on the verge of collapse because of a major doping scandal, should make it to Sunday's finish in Paris after police stemmed their investigations. Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc said yesterday that he was confident the Tour would be completed. "All together, we are going to complete this Tour, like 84 previous Tours were completed," he said on the event's internal radio channel, Radio Tour, at the start of the 18th stage from Aix-les-Bains to Neuchatel, in Switzerland. [continues 671 words]
Angry Over Hotel Raid, Riders Stage Slowdown A1X-LES-BAINS, France --- The Tour de France, plagued by drug scandals, was stopped twice Wednesday by rider protests and faced a premature end for the first time in its 95-year history. The riders agreed to start Thursday only if the French police modify their tactics in a spreading investigation of some of the 21 teams in the world's greatest bicycle race. Not until Jean-Marie Leblanc, the director of the race consulted with government officials and promised a change in police methods---including questioning in team hotels rather than police stations---did the riders call off their second sit-down. [continues 1041 words]
AIX-LES-BAINS, France (AP) - Angry Tour de France riders crossed the finish line holding hands in symbolic victory, only to be told their entire day of racing through the Alps would not count. In another jarring day for cycling's showcase event, the Tour de France was again hit wiht a protest Wednesday over a drug investigation. It was the second such protest by the riders, who have grown increasingly indignant since the race began July 11. "I can't race in this climate of permanent suspicion where we are taken for criminals," star French rider Laurent Jalabert said. [continues 614 words]
A third team was caught up in the drugs scandal dogging the Tour de France yesterday, after police seized suspect medication in a van driven by officials of the Bigmat team, writes Frank Ellis. The discovery came in Chambery, on the Franco-Swiss border near Albertville, as the cyclists arrived after the 16th stage of the competition. Around 100 doses of medication were found in briefcases among the team's bags during a routine inspection by customs officials, police said. "We're talking about a small quantity of medication, tests have been undertaken to determine their nature." said Albertville deputy prosecutor Monique Hugo. [continues 351 words]
THE scandal-hit Tour de France sank into further chaos yesterday, when the riders stopped the prestigious cycle race to protest against police raids on team hotels, staged as part of a crackdown on drug-taking. When they finally agreed to continue, after 30 minutes, they did so without wearing their race numbers, which led to the 93-mile stage - the 17th, from Albertville to Aix-les-Bains - being declared void. Marco Pantani of Italy, the overall leader, was one of the first riders to remove his number, ripping it from the famous yellow jersey. He said: "This action is being taken because of the persecution of the TVM team. The riders are fed up." [continues 135 words]
NICE, France- French police said Monday they had arrested 16 people from Colombia, France and Aruba, in the Dutch West Indies, after cracking an international ring of drug traffickers operating on the French Riviera. The arrests followed the seizure last week by police aboard two French navy ships of a sailing ship off Venezuela as it was taking on board 700 kilograms of Colombian cocaine (1,500 pounds) of Colombian cocaine. Nine French nationals were arrested in southern France, along with two more aboard the sailing ship Novaia and two French and two Colombians with Mexican passports on Aruba. [continues 65 words]
WITH the arrests following the discovery of steroids in the luggage of the Dutch team, TVM, and the admission by three of the "Festina nine" that they took the banned drug EPO, speculation increased that the remaining stages of this year's Tour de France would be cancelled. Angry scenes between riders and race organisers and an organised go slow by the 'peleton' on the Tarascon-Le Cap d'Agle stage of the race showed the growing sense of anger and frustration. [continues 694 words]
LE CAP D'AGDE, France---The Tour de France nearly unraveled Friday when the 150 remaing riders went on strike for two hours to protest what they called media hounding and criticism in the drug scandal surrounding the world's greatest bicycle race. "If the stage had been canceled, it might have been the end of the 1998 Tour," said Jean-Marie Leblanc, the race director. "The riders showed they're fed up," he added in a news conference after the daily stage was held. Leblanc especially cited a French television segment Thursday night that examined the garbage of the Asics team from Italy and displayed medical paraphernalia. [continues 847 words]
Unfortunately, cyclist's use of drugs is hardly hot news The Sue Mott Interview THE Tour de Farce. The biggest drug festival since Woodstock. The greatest pharmaceutical road show since Jimi Hendrix went on tour. This used to be a cycle race, one of the most evocative, romantic, compelling, demanding sports shows on earth. They put the winner in a yellow jersey. Now all we can seek a surgical gown. The initial shock has been replaced by initial fatigue. EPO for Erythropoietin, the synthetic blood booster, after 400 phials of the stuff were found in a car blonging to the French team Festina. TVM, the Dutch team, similarly implicated after drugs and masking agent were found in a hotel room. HGH, the human growth hormone, which allied to amphetamines, testosterone, corticosteroids, caffeine, aspirin and valium have been apparently making the alpine climb and descents for years alongside, inside and up the backsides of the riders - the artificial 'domestiques' of the Tour. RIP - since we are talking initials - professional cycle racing. [continues 1548 words]
GRENOBLE, France---What doping scandal? After agreeing with bicycle-racing authorities to discuss the sport's pharmacological problems in the fall and deciding not to talk now about anything but the athletic aspect of the Tour de France, the 147 remaining riders continued Sunday to roll toward their rendezvous with the Alps. If teams had psychologists instead of sports doctors they would say the race is in denial. Unmentioned by anybody on two wheels is the fact that two jailed officials of the TVM team from the Netherlands are due to be transferred Monday to the French city of Reims for questioning about the police seizure in March of a team car carrying illegal performance-enhancing drugs. If the officials implicate the team Tour of ficials have said, it will be expeiled. [continues 698 words]
Epicenter of Scandal Stimulates Production of Red Blood Cells For patients suffering from anemia caused by kidney disease, use of the synthetic hormone erythropoietin, or EPO, can be a lifesaver because it stimulates the production of red blood cells. For endurance athletes, the increased oxygen-carrying capacity provided by EPO has made it an alluring, performance-enhancing drug although it is banned and can leave athletes at risk of strokes, heart attacks and even death. EPO is at the epicenter of a widening drug scandal in the Tour de France. It is thought to be widely used in cycling, distance running and Nordic skiing by world-class athletes. But the drug goes largely undetected because scientists have yet to develop a reliable test to differentiate naturally occurring EPO from the genetically engineered version of the hormone. [continues 646 words]
PARIS---The American government's hostility to the international criminal court agreed on by 113 nations in Rome last Friday needs a better explanation than has yet been offered. The court for a long time will provide more symbolism than justice, but it is a significant advance in international law. The United States says it fears that troops on peacekeeping missions might be put on trial for war crimes. This explanation does not deserve to be taken seriously. Congress and the press should force the administration to explain what it really fears and why. [continues 777 words]
If it forces cycling into a long-overdue confrontation with the drug takers, the fallout from what has become known as "the Festina affair" can only benefit the sport. After the detention of Bruno Roussel, the Festina team manager, and Eric Ryckaert, the team doctor, by French police at the finish of stage four and the subsequent raid on the team's rooms in their nearby hotel, the International Cycling Union (UCI), cycling's governing body, finally acted. Under pressure from sponsors, media and the tour organisation itself, the UCI suspended Roussel's team manager's licence. [continues 776 words]
THE drugs scandal surrounding the Tour de France cycling marathon exploded into the open when the team at the carte of the allegations, Festina, was sensationally thrown out of the tour. The team included Richard Virenque, the reigning mountain champion, and Alex Zulle, one of the favourites for overall victory. The disqualification came after the team coach, Bruno Roussel, admitted that he had conducted a "concerted" practice of giving the team's riders illegal, performance - enhancing drugs. Roussel, 41, and the team doctor were already under investigation following the arrest of a masseur, Willy Voet, carrying a cache of anabolic steroids and growth hormones. - --- Checked-by: Melodi Cornett [end]
A 65-kilometre corridor in France is being turned into an alcohol-free zone today in the hope of avoiding more violence by English and German football hooligans. Hundreds of riot police were drafted into Lens in advance of a match between England and Columbia which will determine whether England remains in the Cup. The alcohol ban applies to bars along a coastal swarthe, from Dunkirk and Calais, all the way to Lens. Establishments in Lens face being shut down for eight days if they serve alcohol between 8 a.m. today and 8 a.m. Friday. A French policeman remains critically ill on life support after German hooligans fought pitched battles in the town last weekend. Before then, English hooligans had caused mayhem in Marseille. The French authorities fear some Germans may be heading for Lens to fight English fans. - --- Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson) [end]
The report about the "problems caused by drugs harm", revealed in our editions of June 17 had to be mark with a white stone. For the first time in France, this debate with high ideologic gravity will be able to begin on bases as objective as the current state of the progresses of science allows it. We argue, at last, on the pharmacology of the substances and not on the preconceived views, social, cultural and policies they convey. This new approach, which allows particularly to put in perspective the real harm of alcohol and cannabis, clarifies the incoherences of the current, medical and repressive legislative system fighting against the consumption of drug. It underlines has which point the distinction which is made between licit and illicit drugs does not rest on scientific bases. How can anyone reasonably maintain that it is legal to consume the quantity of alcohol which one wishes and that it is forbidden to smoke cannabis, even few grams? [continues 303 words]
PARIS, June 17 (Reuters) - Flying in the face of official policy, a government-commissioned report published on Tuesday concludes that drinking is a far worse health hazard than smoking cannabis. The report, by the state medical research institute INSERM as well as foreign experts and published by Le Monde newspaper, questions French laws that place few restrictions on drinking but ban cannabis. It identifies alcohol, heroin and cocaine in the group of substances most dangerous to health. Tobacco, psychotropic drugs, tranquillisers and hallucinogens are in a second group, with cannabis well down the list of substances categorised as posing relatively little danger. [continues 193 words]
Please send any related articles to editor@mapinc.org However, please send plain text in a message, not HTML or attachments, which will not process thru our system. We will attempt to translate articles sent in other languages; however, because of the limits of our text based system which does not always handle none English characters well, the translations may be a little rough. Please forgive us for any errors that may result. We used AltaVista Babelfish at: http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/ to translate the below. Newshawks may have better luck with translations to translate it for us first, using the above website as needed, before sending it to editor@mapinc.org because of what may be lost as the text passes thru our roboeditor system. [continues 297 words]
French lead the world in use of medications On Easter Sunday, when Marie-Claude Monnet began slurring her words after a single glass of wine and fell asleep midway through the holiday roast lamb, the Monnet family realized that it had a problem. Her daughter Jeanne found more than 100 open boxes of tranquilizers, narcotic painkillers and antibiotics in the 79-year-old woman's Paris apartment. ``We had to face the facts,'' Jeanne said. ``Maman is a droguee'' -- ``a junkie.'' [continues 1813 words]
PARIS, March 25 (Reuters) - A state prosecutor urged a Paris court on Wednesday to jail the leader of a group that mailed a marijuana cigarette to every French MP along with a plea to ease France's tough drug laws. Prosecutor Bernard Pages said Jean-Pierre Galland and his Paris-based Collective for Information and Research on Cannabis (CIRC) had committed a serious crime. He urged the court to convict Galland of ``encouraging drug use'' and called for an 18-month jail sentence, one year of it to be suspended. [continues 147 words]
MORE than 100 French artists and intellectuals have signed a petition admitting to taking soft drugs and offering themselves for prosecution, WRITES JOHN LICHFIELD in Paris. The intention is partly to embarrass the government of Lionel Jospin, but mostly to embarrass the judiciary, which has brought a number of legal cases against high-profile campaigners for the legalisation of cannabis and other drugs. The signatories of the "petition of 111" include the 1960s Franco-German political activist, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the film director Patrice Chereau, the fashion designer and president of Paris Opera, Pierre Berge, and the actress Marina Vlady. The petitioners state: "At one moment or other of my life, I have consumed stupefying drugs. I know that in admitting publicly that I am a drug user, I can be prosecuted. This is a risk I am ready to take." [continues 148 words]
Chris Clay provided this link to addresses: http://www.lemonde.fr/adresses/index.html and Peter Webster wrote: It is not entirely clear, but I would send lte's to both of the following: courrier@lemonde.fr this the most likely for lte's lemonde@lemonde.fr prob. a general address [end]
THE Movement for Controlled Legalisation (MLC), which advocates the sale of narcotics under state control, has just asked the French health minister, Bernard Kouchner, to authorise the import of 10kg of cannabis for therapeutic use. The jurists of the MLC base their arguments on articles of the public health code that give the health authorities the right to authorise the import and use of narcotics for medical or scientific research. The Swiss company Valchanvre has offered to supply, free, 10kg of its Walliser Queen variety of cannabis for the MLC's experiment. [continues 300 words]
Normally Le Monde gives little space to sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. But the austere French daily has outraged some readers by publishing a lengthy interview with the perpetual rock star Johnny Hallyday in which he casually admits to taking cocaine. John Lichfield reports. The controversy falls into three parts. There are the diehard Le Monde readers who believe the newspaper should never mention a "chanteur yeye" like Johnny Hallyday at all. There are more broad-minded readers who were, none the less, astonished to find the newspaper permitting him to make a defence of cocaine and its artistic contribution to rock music. [continues 737 words]
PARIS—The French government will approve the experimental medical use of marijuana in hospitals next year as a first tentative step toward relaxing the country's Draconian drug laws. Discussions also are to be held early next year on the abolition of prison sentences for possession of small quantities of marijuana and other 'soft' drugs - perhaps eventually leading to decriminalization of cannabis use, government officials say. Although the government has ruled out any formal change in drug laws in the near future, it is contemplating administrative changes to soften the harsh French rules. [continues 380 words]
PARIS, Dec 10 (Reuters) A group advocating the decriminalisation [sic] of marijuana said on Wednesday it had sent a handrolled marijuana cigarette to every French MP, along with letters urging them to ease France's tough drug laws. ``This legislation, the most repressive in Europe, has done nothing to halt the massive spread of drugs, nor has it slowed the appetite of a certain number of our fellow citizens for illegal substances,'' the Parisbased Collective for Information and Res earch on Cannabis wrote. [continues 79 words]
From John Lichfield in Paris The French health minister, Bernard Kouchner, is in favour of the partial legalisation of cannabis. He is the third member of the present French government in recent months to express a view of this kind. Mr Kouchner said last week that the medicinal prescription of cannabis should "obviously" be legalised. The Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, has already said that he favours decriminalisation. The environment minister, Dominique Voynet, has called for outright legalisation of the drug. The issue will be one of several drugrelated questions to be studied in depth at a conference at the health ministry in Paris next Friday and Saturday. The conference brings together politicians, civil servants, doctors and drugs experts, who will make cautious recommendations to Mr Kouchner. [continues 356 words]
Exguru, Convicted Of Killing In Absentia, Free Amid Doubts About American Justice By Johnthor Dahlburg, Los Angeles Times PARIS Since 1993, the writer with the saltandpepper goatee lived in a converted windmill in a village of southern France with his strawberryblond Swedish wife. Last June, before sunrise, heavily armed police moved in and arrested him as he lay naked in bed. He claimed it was a case of mistaken identity. But fingerprints showed he was Ira Einhom, a former hippie and New Age guru from Philadelphia convicted on firstdegree murder charges in the death of his former girlfriend and a man on the run for almost 17 years. [continues 568 words]
The largest part of the operation, by about 2,250 officers, took place in northern France where police searched more than 9,000 vehicles and checked the identities of over 16,000 people. A total of 37 kilos (81 lbs) of cannabis was seized in spot inspections in France with smaller quantities of other drugs also being discovered, police said. The operation was the third of its kind this year in an attempt to discourage small dealers travelling between the three states. [end]
``All drugs are dangerous,'' Guigou told RTL radio, answering with a flat ``no'' when asked if the government which came to power in June might relax narcotics laws. ``Prohibition must remain a point of reference. As justice minister and as a mother, I consider that's a necessity,'' she said. Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin admitted during the campaign that he had twice smoked hashish and suggested he would decriminalise use of soft drugs if elected. ``Legalising sounds like justifying, penalising is absurd. I think we have to find a line somewhere between the two,'' he said in April. [continues 224 words]
Inside France
