MDMA is different from all the drugs that came before it -- which explains why it has become the fastest-growing illegal substance in America. How Bad It Is to Be 20 Years Old The pill was white and smelled like No-Doz. Although it had come to us in the mail inside a tennis ball, it was legal then, fresh from a lab in Texas. No rumors, no culture surrounding it. We took it on a whim, on blind faith -- because it was Saturday and there was nothing better to do. It was late afternoon, warm for November in New Hampshire. [continues 8261 words]
Amid fears that the United States may be dragged into a Vietnam-style war in Colombia, president-elect George W Bush is to order intelligence agencies to review America's role in the region with the aim of preventing casualties. Bill Clinton committed American forces last year to training Colombian army battalions to fight the heavily armed rebel and paramilitary groups that protect the country's cash-rich coca crops and drug cartels. The aim was to stem the flow of cocaine into the United States. [continues 936 words]
AN ACADEMIC who was to have lectured Britain's top law enforcement officials on how to catch drug traffickers has been accused of being the mastermind behind one of the world's largest illegal LSD factories. William Leonard Pickard Jr, a former Harvard research associate who moved to the University of California, was preparing for a conference on drug trafficking to be held at Windsor Castle and to be attended by Jack Straw, the home secretary, and Keith Hellawell, the government's drug czar. [continues 715 words]
THE remote croft belonging to Andy MacRury, a sheep farmer, might be in bleak and windy Caithness, but his attic might as well be in Morocco. In the dry heat of his loft, a secret "field" has produced the lush new crop that he hopes will compensate for the dwindling income from his sheep. That new crop is cannabis and MacRury is one of a new generation of crofters growing it on an agricultural scale. It was farmers like MacRury who police constable Neil MacDonald, drugs officer for Caithness, had in mind last week when he told a conference about the scale of the new Highland agriculture. [continues 1041 words]
A DRUG dealer is attempting to overturn his conviction on the basis that Cyril Kelly, the former High Court judge, heard part of his co-defendant's smuggling case in private chambers. The former judge will be subpoenaed as a witness for the Dublin drug dealer, who claims that he would not have been convicted if the evidence had been heard in public. The shadowy drama, involving a drug trafficker and a spy, threatens to revive memories of the Philip Sheedy affair. Kelly resigned as a judge after it was revealed that he had reduced the sentence of a drunk driver. [continues 388 words]
EVIDENCE of cocaine being snorted inside the Houses of Parliament has been discovered. Several samples collected by The Sunday Times from lavatories at Westminster have tested positive for the drug. Researchers took 22 samples from surfaces in toilets adjoining bars used by MPs and their guests in the Commons, and from lavatories on the first floor of the House of Lords. Laboratory tests showed that a small white particle found in a men's lavatory yards from the offices of Lord Irvine, the lord chancellor, amounted to about 50mg of cocaine. There is no suggestion that Irvine, who has taken a hard line on barristers using drugs, was aware of any abuse so close to his office. [continues 472 words]
A YUGOSLAV intelligence official has been caught trying to smuggle cocaine with a street value of up to UKP4m out of Venezuela. Diplomats say the case reveals a murky world of multi-million-pound drug smuggling that helped to prop up the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, the former president. Officers of Venezuela's Policia Tecnica Justicia (PTJ) tried to seize Miloslav Markovic as he headed for Caracas airport on September 28, a week before Milosevic was ousted. Hours earlier, in a joint operation with the American Drug Enforcement Agency, they had found 40 kilograms of cocaine stashed inside a container full of furniture and South American art that Markovic was shipping to Belgrade from the port of La Guaira. [continues 682 words]
Keith Hellawell's call for cabinet ministers and top civil servants to submit to random drug testing is as welcome as it is amusing. That the government's drug czar will not endear himself to Whitehall makes his suggestion all the more pertinent. Downing Street's ban on ministers answering questions about their past acquaintance with cannabis showed Tony Blair's growing fondness for a curtain of secrecy between us and the government. For once the Tories, with their drug-taking confessions, scored on candour and are none the worse for it. [continues 293 words]
TONY BLAIR'S drug czar has made a daring proposal that cabinet ministers should be subjected to random drug tests. Keith Hellawell wants to see testing for narcotic substances become more widely used in the workplace, including Whitehall departments. Even Tony Blair might be asked to take a blood test or give a urine sample in his capacity as head of the civil service. The system would be similar to the one which required the Duke of York, as a naval officer, to give a sample last year. [continues 356 words]
A POLICE force has introduced armed foot patrols on the streets for the first time in mainland Britain in an attempt to combat rising gun crime. Officers wearing Walther P990 pistols on their hips are conducting regular patrols on estates in Nottingham. The move, called Operation Real Estate, represents a significant shift in British policing, which has prided itself on the tradition of the unarmed bobby on the beat. Until now, armed officers have been deployed on the streets of Britain only for diplomatic duties or to tackle specific incidents such as sieges, armed robberies and terrorist attacks. In Northern Ireland, however,officers have patrolled for years armed with at least a handgun. [continues 619 words]
The government's drugs policy was in chaos this weekend after Tony Blair admitted he may not have his finger on the nation's pulse over parental attitudes towards cannabis. The prime minister said he might be "wrong" in believing that most parents shared his conviction that their children should not experiment with soft drugs. Blair's apparent prevarication brought immediate condemnation last night from politicians and police in the front line of the fight against drugs. His comments came before an informal European summit in Biarritz when he was asked by John Humphrys, on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, whether he would prefer his children to "get drunk" or have "the odd spliff". [continues 599 words]
Tony Blair yesterday chose to steer the debate on cannabis away from the issue of whether or not politicians smoked a joint or two at university, or still do so on the quiet. But he ended up creating yet further confusion about whether the law should be enforced. Our NOP poll today shows that public opinion is evenly divided on whether or not the government should take a tougher line on marijuana. Only one in five people thinks the eight Conservative frontbenchers who admitted smoking pot years ago were wrong to do so. [continues 310 words]
A QUARTER of William Hague's shadow cabinet last night admitted to having smoked cannabis, reigniting the debate over Tory policy on soft drugs, write Michael Prescott and Eben Black. The five senior Conservatives who confessed to breaking the law all said they had tried cannabis in their student days and denied dabbling with the drug since. Privately, many expressed fury with Ann Widdecombe, the shadow home secretary. They said it was her new policy of =A3100 fines for anyone with even small amounts of cannabis that had prompted media inquiries about their student habits. [continues 713 words]
Spanish police blamed their British counterparts yesterday for being unable to find up to ten tons of cocaine reported to be on board a cargo vessel seized in what was billed as the biggest ever single drugs bust in Europe. The Spanish drugs officers who led last Thursday's spectacular high-seas raid on the Panamanian-registered Privilege cargo vessel admitted that they had still not found a trace of the cocaine. They have now reportedly been joined in Las Palmas, the Canary Isles port, by the undercover British drugs officers who tipped them off that the Privilege had picked up drugs in the mouth of Venezuela's Orinoco river. The Spanish officers said that British police were responsible for tracking the vessel by satellite during its voyage. Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service yesterday declined to comment. [end]
Killing fields: Clinton is backing an intensified campaign against Colombian cocaine growers and dealers, with helicopter gunships raining defoliants on coca plants IN PUERTO ASIS, in the remote, coca-rich hinterland of Colombia, Father Luis Alfonso Gomez is preparing for war. As President Bill Clinton arrives this week to promote efforts to fight the drug trade and end the 30-year civil war on which it has thrived, the priest fears his country may drag the superpower into a new Vietnam. [continues 791 words]
EARLY this week somebody stole a number of items from residents at the Shoalwater hostel. When an elderly lady goes into a retirement complex she does not expect to be robbed. Some residents take with them only photos and a little jewellery from a marriage of 80 years or more. The cruelty of losing wedding and engagement rings with little commercial value is incalculable to these old girls who have served this country well. I have advertised a reward far in excess of the value of the items for their return, if only to mend a broken heart. Until our bleeding-heart magistrates start justifying the hard work our police put in by removing these low-lifes from society, we are more and more forced to act for ourselves. [continues 317 words]
At 50, her skin seems as smooth as porcelain. Not a hair of her reddish mane is out of place. But a look of mild annoyance ruffles Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington's immaculate countenance when asked if she knows George W Bush: "Of course I do." He is, she says, a "charming man" - but not one with the imagination to do anything to help the poor, her new passion. Huffington has made a career out of knowing rich and powerful people in various phases of an eye-catching life as author, socialite and political commentator. When the name Arianna crops up around political dinner tables, nobody asks, "Who?" [continues 899 words]
HEROIN with a street value of more than UKP 11m is being supplied to addictson the National Health Service in an attempt to cut drug-related crime and reduce the social damage caused by drug abuse. Despite continuing vocal government resistance to legalising the use of cannabis, the number of doctors with Home Office licences to prescribe heroin to addicts has quietly increased. Latest figures show there are 100 doctors across the country who hold the permits. Between 1,000 and 3,000 addicts are now getting NHS heroin, while tens of thousands of other users have to obtain supplies from backstreet dealers. [continues 390 words]
In 1839 the Chinese official, Lin Zexu, wrote the following words to Queen Victoria: "Suppose there were people from another country who carried opium for sale to England and seduced your people into buying and smoking it; certainly your honourable ruler would deeply hate it and be bitterly aroused." Lin's letter was a vain attempt to persuade Her Majesty's government to call a halt to the opium trade which was having a devastating effect upon growing numbers of the Chinese population. [continues 878 words]
Notorious drug dealer Derek Dunne met a bloody end on the streets of Amsterdam. But John Mooney says there are plenty of young Irish criminals ready to take his place Rachel Mitchell was on the phone when the doorbell rang. It was in the early hours of June 3 and she was not expecting visitors. Neither was her husband, Derek Dunne. Mitchell looked through the spyhole in the front door of their ground-floor apartment at 81 Singerstraat in the leafy Amsterdam suburb of Slotervaart. Years of answering the door to police officers with search warrants had taught her to be cautious. But it was not the police - it was a friend of her husband from Liverpool. She unlocked the door and let him in. [continues 1487 words]
The unknown disease wiping out Glasgow heroin addicts may not be a one-off. Jean West reports As a microbiologist, Dr Penelope Reading was familiar with the body's standard physiological response to infection. So alarm bells rang when two of her patients - both young female heroin addicts - deteriorated rapidly after presenting with what appeared to be straightforward skin infections. Abscesses are familiar to the staff at Glasgow's Royal Victoria Infirmary, who deal with many addicts. Drained and treated with fast-acting antibiotics, they usually heal swiftly. But these women were different. They quickly went into downward spirals and died. [continues 1185 words]
CANNABIS has been found growing in Buckingham Palace. A small plant was found yesterday in a ground floor page's kitchen after a member of the palace staff reportedly alerted the royalty protection squad. Officers removed the plant and it was sent to a laboratory for analysis. Scotland Yard said last night that, after a brief investigation, no arrests had been made and no further action was being taken. Police are said to have interviewed staff to see if there was a widespread drugs problem at the palace. [end]
SCIENTISTS are about to embark on trials of the first vaccine against cocaine addiction. Once inoculated, patients will be unable to feel any of the effects of cocaine, no matter how much they take, because the drug will be neutralised by the immune system. "We have done the work on animals and we are moving into the clinic later this year," said Professor Kim Janda of The Scripps Research Institute in California. "We plan to work with patients, possibly at a hospital in France, by the autumn of this year. [continues 273 words]
A group of families who claim their children were harmed by Ritalin, a drug to cure hyperactivity, is planning a legal action against clinicians. Ritalin, originally launched in America, has become increasingly fashionable for treating "difficult" children in Britain. More than 130,000 prescriptions were issued last year, some for children still in nappies, despite the fact that Novartis, the drug's manufacturer, does not recommend it for youngsters under six. The company also advises doctors not to prescribe it for longer than one month, but many of the children have been on it for several years, and according to their parents have become addicted. [continues 446 words]
A WESTERN Power task force has nabbed 150 electricity thieves and saved taxpayers about $5 million in two years. The company's chief inspector Tony Mancini said a revenue protection group used surveillance techniques to trap residents who were stealing power. The team monitored sudden surges in power usage, followed police leads and public tip-offs on suspected drug dealers using lamps to grow marijuana hydroponically in ceilings, cupboards and basements. About half the offenders were involved in drugs. Meter readers were trained to spot telltale signs of tampering, such as tiny holes drilled in meters. [continues 212 words]
The Escalating War Abroad Will Only Divert Attention From The Question At Home: Are Attacks On The Supply Of Drugs More Effective Than Major Efforts To Reduce Demand? A new media-op in the perpetual drug war. This is a media alert for editors and television producers who thought they could safely ignore all news outside the United States: the permanent drug war is going military -- and abroad. The White House and Congress, having failed with massive domestic police actions to reduce the quantity or quality of illegal drugs on our streets, are mounting a major pursuit of coca growers in Colombia. [continues 987 words]
NORM? The bottom line of this debate is one of freedom of choice - in a land where I am allowed to choose whether to walk the streets late at night, I should have the right to choose whether to smoke cannabis. Phillips suggests that the key difference between alcohol and drugs is that drugs are a ''marginalised and feared phenomenon''. This is clearly false of cannabis: today's youth view a few joints as central to their social life and, in contrast to having a few pints, they do not feel aggressive and boisterous but pleasantly relaxed. Where ''millions of people are prepared to breach moral norms'', one wonders whether they really are norms. James Morris, Cambridge [end]
Drug syndicates are turning to cigarette smuggling because the profits are greater and the risks, if caught, are smaller. The gangs are shipping billions of illegal cigarettes through Britain's eastern ports, which customs investigators have discovered are the biggest gateway used by tobacco smugglers. New figures reveal that the illegal trade, which mainly targets Felixstowe in Suffolk and uses freight containers and lorries, dwarfs the imports by tobacco gangs at Dover who use van drivers and foot passengers with holdall bags. [continues 620 words]
EVERY person flying into Britain faces having their air tickets tested for traces of drugs under ambitious plans being considered by Keith Hellawell, the government's "drug tsar". The plan, which is certain to lead to protests from civil liberties campaigners, follows research which showed that 80% of the banknotes circulating in central London bore traces of cocaine. Hellawell is organising trials of a British invention that in just a few seconds will be able to check tickets for heroin, cocaine, cannabis or ecstasy residue. The government has cleared the machine, known as a boarding pass analyser (BPA), to be set up at a British airport later this year to test for traces of plastic explosives. It is already being used on trial by the Canadian government and the Federal Aviation Administration in America. [continues 460 words]
NEW powers for police to monitor and search nightclubs are planned by Tony Blair in a sharp crackdown on drugs. He is also to reappoint Keith Hellawell as his "drug tsar". Legislation to be unveiled in the Queen's speech this autumn will tighten the rules on confiscation of assets that may have been bought with drug money. Anybody convicted of drug trafficking also faces automatic confiscation of their passport to prevent flight before they are sentenced and to curb the movement of international traffickers. Treatment will be made compulsory for addicts convicted of a criminal offence. [continues 168 words]
ANOTHER friend of the circle with whom Prince William associates has been seen taking cocaine at a fashionable London party. The friend was named yesterday as Izzy Winkler, a 22-year-old socialite at Edinburgh University. A fellow party-goer said: "I saw Izzy sniffing cocaine from a tabletop. This is not telling tales. The complacency about the set who have appointed themselves William's friends deserves to be challenged before some terrible accident occurs." Winkler, in her third year of a philosophy degree, is friends with Laura Parker Bowles, the sister of Tom Parker Bowles, one of William's most trusted friends, who admitted taking cocaine last year. [continues 699 words]
Police officers responsible for protecting Prince William are understood to have requested advice from their superiors amid growing concern about drug-taking among those in his circle. The officers are said to have sought "clarification" about what action to take over the use of cocaine by those who socialise with the prince. Their move comes amid mounting concern in royal circles over the growing numbers of reports that friends of William, 17, who is still at Eton, have admitted taking cocaine. [continues 228 words]
A BRITISH police officer has been arrested in India and accused of trying to smuggle heroin worth almost UKP 31m into Britain. Shabir Rehman Abdul Mubarak, a constable from Preston, Lancashire, was one of five men held in Bombay by Indian drug squad officers on Friday. He holds both Indian and British passports, although his superiors in the Lancashire force had been unaware of his dual nationality, which usually bars people from serving in the police. Bombay police said the suspects were found with 5 kilograms of "superior-quality heroin" with a street value of UKP950,000. It is alleged that Mubarak used his police warrant card to try to smuggle the drugs onto a flight to Dubai, where the suspects were scheduled to catch a flight to Manchester. [continues 168 words]
Kilkenny is no different from other towns, say locals. But if that's true, writes Tommy Conlon, then rural Ireland must be falling victim to a drug culture Last night in Kilkenny, it was business as usual down the bog-bars: kids with their plastic bags full of cans, their flagons of cider and their stash of hash, ecstasy or speed . They call them bog-bars but really its just a field, a patch of green squeezed between the houses of some struggling estate where they congregate to drink and smoke and get stoned. [continues 1966 words]
Dublin teenagers take more drugs and alcohol and are more delinquent than their peers, a study of five European cities has found. The study's authors recommend the introduction of a national identity card scheme and the enforcement of tobacco sales laws. A survey of substance use among second-year post-primary pupils in Dublin, Newcastle, Rome, Bremen, in Germany, and Groningen, in the Netherlands, showed that the Irish capital fared worst in almost every category. Just under a third of Dublin teenagers admitted to using at least one illicit substance; cannabis being by far the most popular choice, with 28% using it in the last year. This compared with Newcastle on 27%, Bremen 21%, Groningen 15% and Rome 11%. [continues 471 words]
UP TO 12,000 people a year - 32 every day - are dying drug-related deaths, a government report is set to reveal. The report, due out in the spring, will reveal for the first time the full scale of the crisis. Current Home Office figures show only about 800 people dying annually as a result of drug use, 15 times fewer than the figure in the report. The research, by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), was ordered by the "drug tsar" Keith Hellawell last year after officials told him available figures were unreliable. [continues 335 words]
Media mercenaries join the war on drugs. The politicians and propagandists who wage our war on drugs have really outdone themselves. After bloating the prisons and creating a vast antidrug industrial complex, they have now bribed our networks to deliver prime-time audiences for indoctrination and even corralled many newspapers as do-good collaborators. Not even during the cold war, with our faith in democracy at stake, did federal authorities dare so to subsidize and subvert our media. Back then, Congress explicitly forbade the agencies promoting anti-Communism -- notably the United States Information Agency, its Voice of America and even the Central Intelligence Agency -- to aim their propaganda at Americans. Why? Because everyone understood that the government's heavy hand on the scale of public opinion could distort the weight of any argument and diminish the public's freedom. [continues 943 words]
TRAIN drivers could need more free time to enable them to take recreational drugs if they were to be legalised, a rail union said last night. Aslef, which last week won a new deal on lesser working hours for drivers after threatening a series of one-day strikes, called for "discreet blocks of time" to be inserted into crew rotas. These would allow drivers successive days away from work and end a situation in which some staff are claimed to be working 12 days in a row without time to relax. [continues 347 words]
BRITAIN'S "drug tsar", Keith Hellawell, has accused cabinet ministers of orchestrating a dirty tricks campaign against him that is undermining the government's drug strategy. The former chief constable, now Tony Blair's most highly paid special adviser, said that constant "sniping and innuendo" in the press had "the potential to undermine what we are all working towards". He said he was "increasingly frustrated" to find the government's 10-year plan to tackle drug abuse praised across the world as the model for other nations, but increasingly trivialised by the actions of some Labour ministers and spin doctors in Britain. [continues 656 words]
A BOOK to be published this week about George W Bush, the Republican frontrunner, claims his father's chief of staff admitted in 1998 that the candidate had taken cocaine during the 1970s. Michael Dannenhauer, chief of staff to former president George Bush, is said to have told Toby Rogers, a journalist with the Houston Public News, a newspaper in Texas (where Bush Jr is governor), that the politician was "out of control" from the time he attended Yale University. "There was cocaine use, lots of women, but the drinking was the worst," the aide is alleged to have said. [continues 492 words]
ONE hot dog, no onions, plenty of crack cocaine. Unlicensed hot dog stands have become London's newest drug menace as "rocks" of crack at pounds 20 a time join the fast food menu. Last week undercover reporters were offered drugs three times by hot dog sellers frying frankfurters for nightclubbers and late-night drinkers in the West End. On a bustling weekend, Soho is full of teenagers and students spilling out of nightclubs. This is a market that appeals to drug pushers; it is easy to turn young buyers from cocaine and ecstasy to harder drugs such as crack and heroin. Hot dog stalls are ideal as they are on the streets until 2 or 3am. [continues 453 words]
It's the nightmare of so many parents with teenage children. The arrest of Nicholas Knatchbull's three friends on suspicion of possessing drugs was the latest in a series of drug incidents concerning Prince William's social circle. The routine availability of illegal substances is now a fact of life for young people. Keith Hellawell, the "drug tsar", said last week that drug-taking among well-educated teenagers from stable families was the fastest growing part of the drug racket. Forget cannabis - these kids are going straight for cocaine. [continues 1140 words]
Child alcoholics as young as 11 are being treated at Perth detoxification centres. A rehabilitation expert made the shock announcement this week while preparing for the new year rush on dry-out services. Anne Russell-Brown – regional manager for Mission Australia, Perth City Mission – said children as young as 11 were being treated for alcohol dependence by the welfare group. Counsellors at the mission's residential rehabilitation program for under 18s, called Yirra, were encountering younger clients all the time. Many were referred to Yirra by police or the Children's Court, where up to 75 per cent of cases are alcohol related. Others were found by concerned outreach workers in city and Northbridge streets and parks. [continues 442 words]
Drug abuse leaves thousands of children without parents at Christmas. Patricia Nicol on an abandoned generation and those who raise them It is a typical children's Christmas party. There is jelly and ice-cream, pass the parcel and pin the tail on the donkey. Joe, who works as a caretaker at the church across the road, is Father Christmas. He has a present for each child: Barbie dolls for the girls, toy cars for the boys and building blocks for the toddlers. [continues 2347 words]
Forget bubbly: the biggest shortage facing Irish party-goers for the millennium is drugs, particularly cocaine and ecstasy, according to senior gardai. Traffickers concerned they will not be able to meet the expected rise in demand are resorting to desperate measures to import drugs for new year celebrations. In an unprecedented move, say gardai, over the past fortnight Irish lorry drivers in Spain and Amsterdam have been asked to ferry packages back to Ireland. "It seems to be a sign of desperation," said one senior source. "Usually the courier is known to the traffickers and paid in advance. The scheme is usually organised from Ireland." [continues 211 words]
IT IS 13,500 miles from the City of London to the bamboo shack on the Pacific island of Nauru, but pounds 1m can cover the distance in a fifteenth of a second. The tiny sovereign state has become a safe haven for the proceeds of drug trafficking, prostitution, people smuggling and other rackets by gangs in Britain, Russia and America. Every day tens of millions of pounds are believed to be laundered through at least 200 banks and shell companies registered in the hut that houses the Nauru Agency Corporation (NAC). Investigators chasing dirty money were astonished that the island, whose main income was once from mining fossilised bird droppings for fertiliser, has become a huge financial washing machine. [continues 746 words]
Young ravers are to be sent to Amsterdam courtesy of the National Health Service and the European Union for what critics claim is a course on drug cocktails, write JOHN HARLOW and SENAY BOZTAS. The NHS and John Moores University, Liverpool, whose chancellor is Cherie Blair, are jointly paying pounds 10,000 to send 40 lecturers and 20 students to attend a conference on drug culture and clubs in the Dutch city this week. The EU is also subsidising the visitors. [continues 180 words]
EVIDENCE of heroin abuse has been discovered at Ashworth hospital, where Moors murderer Ian Brady is held. Burnt tinfoil containing traces of the drug was found two weeks ago in the hospital grounds. The discovery will fuel calls for the closure of the Merseyside hospital. Ashworth - one of three secure hospitals for dangerous long-term psychiatric patients - has twice been recommended for closure by government reports. Frank Dobson, Secretary of State for Health, announced a pounds 5.7 million security plan in May to eliminate criminal activity at the hospital. He was responding to the Fallon report, published in January, which found that pornography was freely available in Ashworth's personality-disorder unit, where sex offenders played unsupervised with an eight-year-old girl. [continues 311 words]
The Figure of 52,000 Americans killed by criminalised drugs annually (News, last week) comes from a study General McCaffrey commissioned but which he will not release. The American National Center for Health Statistics records "14,843 deaths from drug-induced causes in 1996". The accepted figure for illegal drug deaths is 3,000-10,000. The drug war is an unmitigated disaster in the United States. The annual $18 billion federal drug war budget and overall $50 billion national spending have given us paramilitary-style policing, racist enforcement, curtailed civil liberties, jam-packed prisons, police corruption, dangerous streets, a huge bureaucracy that is propagandistic and self-perpetuating, persecution of patients who would benefit from medicinal marijuana and opiates, increased Aids infections, and no decrease in hard-core drug abusers to show for it all. Paul Bischke Policy Reform Group of Minnesota [end]
The American National Center for Health Statistics records "14,843 deaths from drug-induced causes in 1996". The accepted figure for illegal drug deaths is 3,000-10,000. The drug war is an unmitigated disaster in the United States. The annual $18 billion federal drug war budget and overall $50 billion national spending have given us paramilitary-style policing, racist enforcement, curtailed civil liberties, jam-packed prisons, police corruption, dangerous streets, a huge bureaucracy that is propagandistic and self-perpetuating, persecution of patients who would benefit from medicinal marijuana and opiates, increased Aids infections, and no decrease in hard-core drug abusers to show for it all. Paul Bischke, Policy Reform Group of Minnesota [end]
