A while ago, I heard Hillary Rodham Clinton speak at a charity event. With all eyes not merely on her but virtually X-raying her, Mrs. Clinton performed brilliantly. She mentioned the names of people she had just met, extolled the cause, never paused, never said um, never said hmm, never repeated herself and left her audience stunned. Not me, though. I had seen her do that sort of thing numerous times. So you will forgive a modest proposal: Bring on Hillary. Bring her into the well of the Senate and let her, lawyer that she is, sum up the case for the president, her hubby. Let her do what none of Bill Clinton's lawyers have yet been able to do -- rivet the nation, end this most-cinematic of scandals with a Darrowesque summation that we wouldexpect of a good/bad movie. Let her what no one has yet done: turn to the House managers and their odious gumshoe, Ken Starr, and demand, ``How dare you?'' [continues 306 words]
The Frankfurter Rundschau contains an article on the upcoming ‘certification’ date: a 'hated' date for Mexico (March 1st): "Mexico wants good marks - USA to bestow Drug-Certificates on Central America" Mexico correspondent Rita Neubauer writes: "March 1st is a hated date for the Mexican government. On that day its efforts in the war on drugs will be judged by the USA. Mexico has prepared for it. In order to avoid bitter controversy, it announced, in early February, a ‘total war’ against drug trafficking, pledging, with the help of 500 million dollars, to reduce the flow of drugs through Mexico to the USA within the next three years. [continues 813 words]
Andrew Parker is primed to act if he encounters a drug addict overdosing on heroin or cocaine. Parker, 31, is not a paramedic. He's not a social worker. He is an addict. The tall, friendly man with a gap-toothed grin is also a graduate of a course teaching addicts how to survive their addictions and what to do to revive an overdosed friend. The former fisherman has a taste for cocaine and marijuana that's sharpened over the 10 years he has been living in Vancouver's downtown east side. [continues 223 words]
Government: The plan focuses on accountability in trying to cut the nation's drug problem in half. Washington-Hammering home the need for a drug-control strategy that measures success and failure, the Clinton administration is announcing a five-part plan designed to cut the nation's drug problem in half by 2007. In a report to Congress, White House drug policy director Barry McCaffrey said drugs claim more than 14,000 lives in the country annually, despite a nationwide effort that included almost $18 billion in 1998 from the federal government. [continues 208 words]
Washington - The government's ban on using marijuana for medicinal purposes will be tested in the nation's capital as a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis stands trial for lighting a joint in a congressman's office. Renee Emry Wolfe said taking a few puffs of marijuana is the only way she gets relief when her muscles go into spasm from the disease she has had for two decades. For Wolfe, "having a joint is like an asthmatic having a bronchial inhaler," said her attorney, Jeff Orchard. [continues 223 words]
An illegal money-laundering scheme run by the RCMP has received the approval of the province's top court. The Alberta Court of Appeal's written ruling said Mounties acted in good faith during a drug sting called Project Mercury. The three-member court upheld the conviction of Edmonton drug lord Craig Matthiessen on charges of trafficking, money laundering and possession of the proceeds of crime. "It seems to us that the police conduct in this case does not offend the basic values of the community," the court said. [continues 210 words]
Australia's heroin death toll has soared by 73 per cent over the past decade, a study to be released today reveals. The report, the latest snapshot of Australia's spiralling drugs problem, shows that 600 Australians died from opiate overdoses in 1997. Most overdosed on heroin. Drug and alcohol researchers said yesterday there appeared to be no foreseeable ceiling on the number of overdose deaths. And they warned the death rate appeared to be increasing faster in Australia than in other comparable countries, including England. The report provides further evidence that the number of heroin deaths is fast catching up with the road toll. [continues 536 words]
The involvement of the police in narcotic prevention education appears to have little effect to change pupils attitudes to narcotics. That is the conclusion of a report from the Crime Prevention Council (BRA) which has investigated two of the educational programs, VAGA (a direct translation of DARE, translator's note) and the Rave Commission have designed as strategies to stave off drug use. Criminal statistics shows that drug use among Swedish youths is on the increase. Material from annual investigations into the drug use habits of youths also point to an increased drug use according to BRA. In 1997 those suspected of drug crimes of the ages 15 to 19 years old increased to about 13% of the total cases investigated. [continues 252 words]
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (Kyodo) -- North Korea earns more than 100 million U.S. dollars per year through state-run drug production, counterfeiting rings and other illegal operations, according to the latest edition of the weekly U.S. News and World Report. Money earned from the operations may be used to fund Pyongyang's suspected nuclear weapon development program, the magazine said, citing in its article reports from authorities in the United States, Japan and South Korea, as well as reports of illegal conduct by North Korean diplomatic officials in 16 nations. [continues 240 words]
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Three decades ago, an ex-greeting card designer named Robert Crumb made copies of his comic artwork and hawked them on Haight Street from a baby carriage. Zap Comix -- and a new genre of ``underground comix'' -- was born. Racy and anarchic, Zap rebelled against the restrictive comics code of the 1950s and feasted off the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll of the late 1960s. Thirty years later, the one-time hippie cartoonists have finally graduated from Haight-Ashbury head shops to an art gallery that is selling the original artwork for $2,500 to $20,000 a pop. [continues 849 words]
State's Rights Re "From governor's race to pot case," Jan. 21: The arrest of 1998 gubernatorial candidate Steve Kubby on marijuana charges revives the question of California's right to self-determination as guaranteed by the Ninth and 10th amendments. If Attorney General Bill Lockyer follows his oath of office to enforce the laws of California, then he will recognize that Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative, is the law and that Kubby should never have been arrested. The first move should be for Lockyer to counsel the Placer County district attorney on California law. But the bigger question will be if Lockyer does all Americans a favor by taking the federal Drug Enforcement Agency to task for violating the civil rights of a California citizen. The federal government's insistence that federal law supersedes state law, even in areas not specifically granted in the Constitution, deserves to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Gerald Klaas Carmichael [end]
