Washington -- Methamphetamine has made its way into Virginia. The illicit drug, which is easily and cheaply produced by consumer products, has spread quickly and created a national crisis. In a survey by the National Associa-tion of Counties released this month, 58 percent of the 500 law-enforcement agencies sur-veyed in 45 states cited meth as their greatest drug problem, easily sur-passing all other drugs. According to the highly respected National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2003 meth lured 12.3 million Americans aged 12 and older to try it. As former U.S. Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey has said, "Methamphetamine is one of the worst drug menaces ever to threaten America, associated with paranoia, stroke, heart attack, and permanent brain damage, leaving a trail of crime and death." [continues 636 words]
Yes, I think we should legalize marijuana--and maybe all drugs. But the big news is that some prominent conservative Republicans agree with me. What is it about marijuana that makes politicians hallucinate? The faintest whiff of "the weed of madness" (as government propaganda used to call it) causes them to see distorted images of things that aren't there and never were: law and order, justice, reelection. But they don't see the obvious. The war on drugs was lost years ago, and pretending otherwise only makes the problem worse. [continues 1766 words]
Both during and since the recent meeting of President Bush and Afghani President Hamid Karzai, the administration has danced around the critical issue of Afghanistan's growing drug crisis and its impact on the terror threat. The late April arrest of Hajji Bashir Noorzai, whom the Drug Enforcement Administration called the ''Pablo Escobar of heroin trafficking in Asia'' for providing heroin money financing Osama bin Laden, proved once again the connection between Afghan drugs and terrorism. Noorzai even used al Qaeda operatives to transport the heroin out of Afghanistan. [continues 677 words]
People in pain are hurting--but the drug company that makes a pot pill isn't. Medical marijuana ruined Eddie and Dianna Davis' lives. Several years ago, a spat with an ex led Oconee County authorities to get a warrant to search their Walhalla, S.C., home. The next thing they knew, the South Carolina Department of Social Services had sundered the family, taking their four children into custody. Diana and Eddie's crime? Possession of 7 grams (less than a third of an ounce) of marijuana. I met them at the Anti-Marijuana Prohibition Rally last month, co-presented by two groups, the N.C. Cannabis Association and For Safe Access Now. She and Eddie, he in his wheelchair, reposed under the graceful oaks shimmering in the sun at Union Square in the shadow of the stately Greek Revival capitol building--the physical manifestation of the concept of the law: wisdom tempered with mercy. [continues 1366 words]
The headline over a recent National Journal article about U.S. drug czar John Walters seems fairly mundane: "Drug Czar Plays Defense" ( see http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n687/a07.html ) But the subtitle generates more interest. "If you can name the current drug czar, you are probably mad at him." Sounds accurate, at least in my personal situation. But I'm opposed to the whole concept of a federal drug czar, and I find the tactics of Walters little more despicable than his predecessors. In the National Journal, however, other drug warriors just as conniving and dishonest as Walters describe an unlikable bureaucrat, both imperious and isolated. [continues 596 words]
If You Can Name the Current Drug Czar, You Are Probably Mad at Him. Republican and Democratic members of Congress, law enforcement officials around the country, academics who study drug policy, even former and current staff members are raising complaints about the performance of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Under the leadership of John Walters, the office is accused of retreating from its mission, abandoning key programs without consulting with Congress, and losing (or forcing out) key staff members with years of experience. [continues 2590 words]
Data From the Author's Practice Show That Many Californians Use Cannabis to Treat Emotional Conditions. Government Studies Obscure This Reality and Some Reformers Seem Reluctant to Acknowledge It. In response to TV news footage of able-bodied young men buying cannabis in Oakland, city officials voted in 2004 to limit the number of dispensaries. The politicians were exploiting (and re-enforcing) a misconception that California's medical marijuana law applies only to those with serious physical illnesses. Many of my own patients are seemingly able-bodied young men. Their histories reveal problems that are indeed serious (impaired functionality at school and/or work, use of addictive drugs) and that are treated effectively with cannabis. [continues 3348 words]
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Retired U.S. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, drug czar under former President Bill Clinton, said Wednesday the war against drugs is a bigger problem than the war against terror. Speaking at a news conference in Mexico City, McCaffrey said 52,000 people die from drugs each year compared to the 12,000 U.S. troops that have been killed or wounded in Iraq since the war started. Better cooperation between Mexico and the United States has helped win small battles in the fight against drugs, McCaffrey said, adding that the countries now share evidence and have common laws for money laundering, polygraph testing and wire tapping. [continues 252 words]
Conservative commentator Armstrong Williams abused public trust by turning his television show into a clandestine paid advertisement for the administration's No Child Left Behind initiative. It's another embarrassing moment for journalists, but the Department of Education shouldn't escape its share of the shame for complicity in this latest erosion of public trust. Mr. Williams' arrangement with the department required him to produce radio and television spots with Education Secretary Rod Paige. Mr. Williams also was expected to lobby black journalists to support No Child Left Behind. [continues 272 words]
The Bush administration faces a closer look at how it tries to influence public opinion as it readies campaigns to overhaul Social Security and the tax code, following reports that the Education Department paid a conservative columnist to promote its policies. Armstrong Williams, a prominent commentator and frequent guest on television news shows, lost his syndicated column after disclosures that he was paid $240,000 by the Education Department to promote the "No Child Left Behind" law to other black journalists. In an appearance on CNN's "Crossfire" Saturday, Mr. Williams said, "I used bad judgment," and apologized to his audience. "It's the first time we've done business with the government, but I just would not do it again." [continues 517 words]
A Nation Addicted To Profits From Cocaine With new federal statistics showing that one of every six teens still abuses illegal drugs on at least a monthly basis, perhaps we need an additional approach to end this decades-long crisis. While President Bush and Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe praised progress and expressed a commitment to continue to fight narco-terrorism, they did not provide additional resources to combat the poverty that fuels the drug trade and violence in the first place in the No. 1 drug supplier to America. [continues 598 words]
The three-year, 17 percent drop in teen drug use is not the only good news about illegal drugs. According to the annual CIA assessment, last year there was a 23 percent drop in coca production in Colombia, and an 18 percent drop in coca production in the entire Andean Ridge region. The result is the lowest level of cocaine production since 1986. Both the drop in teen drug use and cocaine production in Colombia and the rest of the Andean Ridge Region are the legacy of former "drug czar" Barry McCaffrey. [continues 160 words]
In November 1996, the voters of California passed Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act. That law permitted patients throughout the state to use, possess and grow cannabis and their caregivers to possess, grow and provide cannabis on the recommendation of a physician. One month later, in response to what the federal government saw as an erosion of cannabis prohibition in California, then-drug czar Barry McCaffrey held a press conference to discuss the new law. One of his props was a large flip-chart at the top of which was printed: "Dr. Mikuriya's Medicine." Below it was a long list of ailments for which Dr. Tod Mikuriya, a respected Berkeley, Calif. psychiatrist and co-author and medical advisor of Prop 215, was alleged to have claimed cannabis was beneficial. Along with glaucoma, cancer and AIDS were zingers like "Recovering Forgotten Memories," and "Writer's Cramp," that made the whole list suspicious. [continues 2594 words]
Dr. Tod Mikuriya believes the state is out to get him for prescribing medical pot. Critics say it's not that simple. (Berkeley, CA) Mikuriya has recommended pot more than ten thousand times. Dr. Tod Mikuriya is a true believer. He views his medical practice as a platform from which to help reestablish the medicinal status marijuana enjoyed before the reefer madness of the late 1930s. "It had been available to clinicians for one hundred years until it was taken off the market in 1938," the wide-eyed Mikuriya said in a recent interview. "I'm fighting to restore cannabis." [continues 1472 words]
The Government Has Yet to Prove That Its $200 Million-A-Year Media Campaign Is Effective, Leading to All Sorts of Carping The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy on Oct. 4 chose a new advertising agency, Foote Cone & Belding, to lead its $200 million-per-year anti-drug advertising effort aimed at parents and children. The previous agency, Ogilvy & Mather, was accused of overbilling the government, but that's hardly the only controversy dogging the government's six-year-old anti-drug ad effort. [continues 954 words]
The decade-long debate over providing clean needles to intravenous drug users in New Jersey has hinged on a pair of questions: Would needle-exchange programs save lives by preventing the spread of the virus that causes AIDS? Or would they cost lives by encouraging drug abuse? New Jersey is one of only two states (Delaware is the other) that do not offer some form of legal access to needles. But beginning tomorrow, state lawmakers will introduce fast-tracked bills to change that -- with support from Gov. James E. McGreevey, who says he wants to sign the legislation before his planned departure on Nov. 15. [continues 1277 words]
This happens. Then that happens. Can we conclude that this caused that? Of course not. Does killing turkeys cause it to snow? One event following another is no proof that the first caused the second. Women won the right to vote in 1920. Since then we have had six wars, a Great Depression and the invention of the cell phone. Oh Lord! See what this suffrage hath wrought. Or not. Did women vote for war or economic distress? Aside for a tendency to be more progressive, women vote pretty much the same as men in their community. [continues 745 words]
If Kerry makes good on his promise to review research on medical marijuana when he takes office, he'll be amazed at what has been learned in the last several years. John Kerry's acceptance speech for the Democratic presidential nomination ended with a series of "what if's": "What if we find a breakthrough to cure Parkinson's, diabetes, Alzheimer's and AIDS?" he wondered aloud, to the cheers of the crowd. Innovative treatments for these diseases, and many others, may be closer than Kerry knows, and it won't take fetal tissue to find them. If Kerry makes good on his promise to review research on medical marijuana when he takes office, he'll be amazed at what has been learned in the last several years. [continues 944 words]
Effective youth drug-prevention programs and cost-effective treatment services need to be the focus of the ongoing war on drugs, a former U.S. drug czar said Monday. Barry McCaffrey said community anti-drug programs are especially important and called for more emphasis on prevention and treatment, instead of enforcement, in front of roughly 1,000 substance-abuse service professionals at the annual Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse's drug policy conference. The commission provides funding for prevention, intervention and treatment services through contracts with about 200 community organizations that serve more than 750,000 Texans each year, according to the organization's Web site. [continues 563 words]
Spy Czar Plan Provides No Reforms Proposals to Create a New Intelligence Post Would Simply Add to Bureacratic Hurdles Barry McCaffrey is a retired four-star Army general, aggressive, outspoken and tough as nails. When he retired from the Army, President Bill Clinton appointed him the nation's drug czar - overseeing the 50-odd federal agencies involved in the "war on drugs." The thinking when the office was established in 1988 had been: Let's create a job that doesn't actually run any of these agencies but has the responsibility of melding them into a coherent war. The drug czar was given authority to "certify" the drug interdiction, rehabilitation or prevention budgets scattered around the government. Most of the money that came under the war on drugs was controlled by the Pentagon. [continues 662 words]
