PRESS RELEASE - 29th NOVEMBER, 2004

Edition 39.

Cannabis News Items From Around the World

The Two Faces of Republicanism

Pubdate: Sun, 28 Nov 2004
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Author: David G. Savage, Times Staff Writer
Cited: Raich v. Ashcroft http://www.angeljustice.org/

HIGH COURT CASES SHOW 2 SIDES OF CONSERVATISM

It's Law and Order vs. Limited Government in Medical Marijuana and Wine-Shipping Disputes.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court can ignore the usual liberal-versus-conservative divide in the next two weeks when it takes up California-centric cases on medical marijuana and the direct shipping of wine to consumers. Instead, the justices will be forced to decide between competing versions of conservatism.

The social conservatives seek more government enforcement in areas such as abortion, pornography, drugs, immigration and homosexuality. The small-government, free-market conservatives seek fewer restrictions on private behavior.

It's a clash likely to echo in Washington in the years ahead, as Republican control of all three branches of the government could potentially sideline Democrats and expose philosophical rifts within the GOP. The Supreme Court, where seven of nine justices are Republican appointees, will face especially stark choices on a range of issues.

In a case to be taken up this week, outgoing Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft is challenging the California law that permits seriously ill people to obtain marijuana to relieve their pain if they have the recommendation of a doctor.

Ashcroft argues for strong federal enforcement of drug laws. And he is joined by a group of drug warriors and half a dozen socially conservative Republicans in Congress who, in briefs to the court, argue for a zero-tolerance policy on marijuana.

But leading conservative academics, including veterans of the Reagan administration, have joined the case on the side of the California medical marijuana users. They argue for limits on federal power and for protection of states' rights -- including the right to enact the marijuana law.

"This is a real test of federalism," says Pepperdine University law professor Douglas W. Kmiec, a former Reagan administration lawyer, who filed a brief on behalf of the libertarian Cato Institute supporting medical marijuana users.

The wine-shipping case features a similar dispute between conservatives who champion free trade and those who support strict state controls on alcohol, including a national group of evangelical Christians.

Wine and marijuana are not the only upcoming cases in which these two visions clash.Earlier this month, Ashcroft asked the Supreme Court to take up a challenge to Oregon's law that permits terminally ill people to obtain lethal medication from a doctor. The Bush administration says federal authorities should have the power to punish doctors who write such prescriptions.

However, Oregon officials say the regulation of medicine and healthcare is a matter for the states and their voters. Twice, Oregon's voters have approved the nation's only right-to-die law.

These cases pose a test for the high court's conservative justices.

"They have to decide whether they want to be Mr. Law-and-Order or Mr. Federalism," says Robert A. Levy, a constitutional scholar at the Cato Institute.

In the last decade, the high court's conservative justices, led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, served notice that they wanted to restore limits on federal power.

They did so by focusing on the Constitution's main source of federal power, the provision that says Congress "may regulate commerce among the several states." In the 20th century, this became the basis for federal laws that set minimum wages, prohibited discrimination in the workplace and protected the environment.

But Rehnquist said this power had limits too. In 1995, he spoke for a 5-4 majority that struck down the federal Gun Free School Zones Act on the grounds that the mere possession of a gun did not involve interstate commerce. Five years later, the same 5-4 majority voided part of the Violence Against Women Act that allowed victims of sexual assaults to sue their attackers in federal court.
A sexual assault is a crime, but it is not interstate commerce, Rehnquist said.

Those rulings were applauded by conservatives who said they helped to restore the Constitution's limits on federal authority. Many liberals faulted the rulings as examples of unwarranted conservative judicial activism.

The four liberal justices -- John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer -- dissented in the gun control and sexual assaults cases, saying the court should uphold the broad reach of these federal laws.

Now, the medical marijuana case, Ashcroft vs. Raich, raises the same constitutional issue, but with the ideological leanings reversed.

Conservatives in Washington who have been skeptical of gun control laws tend to support strict antidrug laws. At the same time, many liberals see Ashcroft's campaign against the medical marijuana laws as a classic example of federal overreaching.

Kmiec, the law professor, argues that federal authorities do not have the constitutional power to interfere with those who use homegrown marijuana in California and nine other states that permit the practice. He says that a "principled application of the commerce clause" suggests that Ashcroft does
not have the power to order raids on patients who grow, rather than buy, marijuana for their own use.

Other conservative scholars, including Harvard law professor Charles Fried, Reagan's solicitor general; Northwestern law professor Steven G. Calabresi, a founder of the Federalist Society; and the University of Chicago's Richard A. Epstein, a leading advocate of property rights, also filed briefs in support of California's right to permit the medical use of marijuana.

Boston University law professor Randy E. Barnett, a libertarian, will argue the case for Angel Raich, an Oakland woman who suffers from an inoperable brain tumor and a wasting disease. She says marijuana has been uniquely effective in easing her pain. The court will hear arguments in the case Monday.

The practical effect of the case is not entirely clear. Even if the justices rule for Ashcroft, the decision would not void the California law. That might create a situation in which state and local police would not arrest those using medical marijuana, but federal authorities could.

Under the terms of the 1996 voter initiative, it is legal under California law for seriously ill people to obtain and use medical marijuana, and state and local police should not interfere with those who use marijuana under such conditions.

The wine dispute takes the court back to the end of national Prohibition in 1933. The 21st Amendment gave the states control over alcohol that crossed their borders, and they in turn used this authority to set up elaborate, and sometimes unique, regulations governing the sale of beer, wine and liquor.

Nearly all the states require that alcohol be sold through licensed wholesalers and retailers. However, California and several other wine-producing states permit the direct shipments of wine to consumers in states that allow it.

Michigan and New York, along with more than half of the states, strictly forbid out-of-state vineyards from shipping wine directly to consumers.

These bans were challenged by advocates of free trade, who say the system of licensed wholesalers amounts to government-mandated protectionism.

Clint Bolick of the libertarian Institute for Justice, and Kenneth W. Starr, the former independent counsel and the solicitor general for President George H.W. Bush, are among those representing small wineries in California and Virginia that are challenging the state bans on direct sales. They say these laws amount to economic protectionism.

"This case will decide whether consumers or a cartel of billion-dollar liquor distributors will determine what wine is available to consumers in New York or two dozen other states," says Bolick.

The National Assn. of Evangelicals and the group Concerned Women for America have joined in defense of the state laws, saying the strict controls are needed to prevent underage drinking.

Agreeing with the evangelicals, Georgetown University law professor Viet Dinh, a former assistant to Ashcroft and the chief author of the USA Patriot Act, says the court should reject the free-trade arguments. "This could open the door to the deregulation of alcohol. There is a potential for total alcohol anarchy," says Dinh, who filed a brief on behalf of the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America in defense of the Michigan law.

A long list of prominent conservative lawyers have joined the case on the side of Michigan and New York. They include C. Boyden Gray, White House counsel under the first President Bush; Washington attorney Miguel A. Estrada, who withdrew his nomination to a U.S. appeals court after Senate Democrats blocked his confirmation vote; and former Judge Robert Bork, President Reagan's failed nominee to the Supreme Court.

"This seems to be a case with conservatives, and only conservatives, on both sides," says Dinh. "I think our side is helped because we have the strong support of the faith-based community."

The Supreme Court will hear the Michigan and New York cases ( Granholm vs. Heald and Swedenburg vs. Kelly ) on Dec. 7.

CALIFORNIA WOMEN MAKE A NEW CASE FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

CALIFORNIA WOMEN MAKE A NEW CASE FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Aghast at Federal Agents' Raids After 9/11, They Sue the Government, Saying the Commerce Clause of the Constitution Doesn't Apply to The Pot They Use.

OAKLAND -- She is fast becoming America's best-known pot patient, the woman whose case may help decide whether marijuana has an unfettered future as medicine.

Angel Raich takes her case before the nation's highest court Monday in a bid to keep the federal government from threatening her use of the leafy herb.

To the U.S., cannabis is illegal for any use. To Raich, it is a lifesaver.

The U.S. Supreme Court will wade into a thicket rife with confusion since California voters approved the nation's first medical marijuana ballot measure in 1996.

Facing the high court will be various issues: the right of a state to sidestep federal laws, the ability of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, and the needs of a nation to police illegal drugs versus the needs of the seriously ill.

Bracketing the legal arguments are the stories of Raich, a 39-year-old mother who suffers from more than a dozen ailments she says don't respond to traditional treatments, and her co-plaintiff, Diane Monson, 47, of Butte County.

Monson started using cannabis half a dozen times a day to fight chronic back spasms after her doctor recommended it when other therapy failed.

"I would be dead right now" without cannabis, Raich contends.

The roots of her battle date from the weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. At that time, Raich, a mother of two who had been using marijuana for several years to combat illnesses including a brain tumor, fibromyalgia and a chronic wasting condition, watched in disbelief as federal drug agents raided and shut down several medical marijuana dispensaries.

Aghast at what she and many other "medpot" activists viewed as a misappropriation of federal resources better used in the war against terrorism, Raich and her husband, Oakland attorney Robert Raich, decided something must be done. They recruited Monson, who had had her home raided and six medical pot plants uprooted by federal agents, and filed a lawsuit in October 2002 against the U.S. government.

They asked that the federal government be blocked from arresting either woman, suing them civilly and seizing their medical cannabis or property through asset forfeiture.

Prior lawsuits had claimed that marijuana patients should be allowed to use a federally outlawed drug out of medical necessity, but attorneys for the two women took a different tack -- basing their argument on the commerce clause of the Constitution.

Under the Constitution, Congress can regulate the flow of commercial products and services between states. That bedrock principle was applied when Congress adopted U.S. drug laws in 1970 against trafficking of marijuana and illegal narcotics, such as LSD and heroin.

Raich and Monson argued that the commerce clause did not apply to their use of medical marijuana. Monson grows her marijuana at home with seeds from the prior year's crop -- nothing ever crosses state lines.

Likewise, Raich says her medical pot is essentially homegrown. The cannabis is donated by two California growers -- named only John Doe No. 1 and No. 2 in the lawsuit -- who use seeds, soil and water from the Golden State.

What might seem legal sleight of hand has become a knockdown fight largely over states' rights.

When the pair prevailed before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals a year ago, the U.S. appealed. As federal lawyers see it, the federal Controlled Substances Act trumps state laws authorizing medical marijuana ( nine states besides California have legalized cannabis as medicine ).

Even in cases where illegal drugs are not trafficked between states, federal attorneys argue, the local cultivation, distribution and possession of pot cannot be distinguished from interstate trafficking. Government lawyers argue that U.S. drug agents would face "staggering" difficulties trying to differentiate between illegal drugs transported between states and narcotics that never cross a
state line.

To back up the argument, the U.S. cites the 1942 case involving farmer Roscoe Filburn and his wheat crop.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a fine against Filburn for growing more wheat than allowed under a federal cap, which was put in place to regulate interstate commerce of the crop. Filburn argued that the excess wheat never left his farm, but was used to bake bread and feed his animals.

Federal lawyers argue that the medical marijuana of Monson and Raich, much like Filburn's wheat, remains a crop subject to federal authority even if it doesn't enter the stream of commerce.

The lawyers say in a brief that medical marijuana has a substantial effect on interstate commerce, with excess pot potentially diverted to illegal trade or patients turning to dealers when their supplies run short.

Raich and Monson have received support and opposition -- some expected, some a bit surprising.

Briefs supporting the government have come from the Drug Free America Foundation, Save Our Society From Drugs and other longtime combatants in the war on drugs. Those groups call the case a "Trojan horse tactic" by drug legalization advocates, and say superior medications could be used instead of marijuana.

Several members of the U.S. House of Representatives also backed the government in a legal brief, saying medical marijuana gave traffickers "safe havens" and a new way to avoid arrest. They suggested the Raich case could have "far-reaching implications," opening the door to arguments for the medical use of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

On the streets, "there's no difference between the marijuana that sick people use" and the pot bought by addicts, said Richard Meyer, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman in San Francisco. "We have no beef with sick people. But we have no compassion for the dealers who are preying on these sick people."

Raich and Monson have received support from several pro-legalization groups, as well as medical associations and several states -- including three states staunchly against medical marijuana.

Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi side with the federal government's regulation of pot, but support the argument made by Raich and Monson about Congress overstepping on a matter of interstate commerce.

They argue in a brief that the Constitution permits states to serve as "laboratories for experimentation" on novel social and commercial enterprises. The federal system allows states to set criminal policy, they say, arguing, "As a sovereign member of the federal union, California is entitled to make for itself the tough policy choices that affect its citizens."

Activists hope the high court acts to shield medical marijuana patients from federal threat. If Raich prevails, several other medical marijuana cases could follow. The most notable is a bid by a Santa Cruz County collective of 200 patients who engage in noncommercial cultivation of medical marijuana.

While activists are playing up the big stakes of the Raich case, they're downplaying the consequences if the bid should fail.

Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access, said a Supreme Court defeat would be a blow -- but not a fatal one. "If Raich loses," she said, "California still will have its law. Losing won't mean the end of medical marijuana."

Raich, a waif of a woman in constant combat with her various ills, would just like the time to arrive "when we can be taken off the battlefield."

Life is hard enough as is, she said. She uses pot every two hours to ward off pain -- and keep weight on. She can lose a pound a day if her appetite ebbs.

In an upstairs room, Raich heats up her cannabis with a vaporizer. The machine injects a cloud of pot into a clear sack. She holds it like a bag of cotton candy, taking hits from a nozzle at the end.

"This isn't about recreation," she says between puffs. "I don't like doing this. It's not something I've chosen. But I had to do it for my kids. To stay alive."

Phillipines: SOLON WANTS MARIJUANA LEGALIZED

SOLON WANTS MARIJUANA LEGALIZED

The Cordillera lawmaker's plan to push for the legalization of marijuana yesterday drew a howl of protest among opposition congressmen who warned that the move would worsen the already serious drug abuse problem in the country.

But before his statement could be misunderstood by the public, Representative Solomon Chungalao ( Lakas, Mountain Province ) clarified that the legalization of the addictive plant's use will only be limited to laboratory tests and other similar endeavors aimed at determining the medicinal value of marijuana.

Opposition Representative Rodolfo Plaza ( NPC, Agusan del Sur ) made a swift swipe at Chuangalao's statement which he aired during the defense of the budget proposal of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency ( PDEA ) on the House of Representatives floor.

"The opposition is against any plan to legalize marijuana, shabu, or any other dangerous drug, for that matter," Plaza declared.

The opposition stalwart made the declaration after Pampanga Representative Juan Miguel "Mikey" Arroyo, who was tasked to defend the PDEA budget, echoed Chuangalao's view that marijuana indeed has medicinal properties that are being exploited in other countries.

Chuangalao, chairman of the House committee on national cultural minorities, said he merely aired the possibility of tapping the medicinal use of the plant but doing so will require amendments to the Dangerous Drugs Code that classifies marijuana as dangerous drug, in the same category as the harmful shabu.

"Morphine, a strong anti-pain drug, comes from poppies where opium and other dangerous drugs are derived. I do not see why marijuana, which is addictive but has no proven harmful effects to the health, cannot be considered for its medicinal value," he said.

The administration solon also came to the defense of Arroyo, son of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, saying that the neophyte congressman merely supported the truth in stating that marijuana use is legal in other countries.

"I hope my suggestion to explore the possibility of tapping the medicinal value of marijuana is not taken out of context. I have not yet filed a bill about it because I am still gathering more information about the pros and cons of the idea," Chuangalao said.

However, the lawmaker also admitted that his province and other Cordillera remain the main source of marijuana in the country.

"Farmers plant marijuana because of poverty," Chuangalao said.

Britain's Tony Blair Marches Boldly Backwards on Drug Policy

Seeking Political Traction, Britain's Blair Marches Boldly Backwards on Drug Policy
Pubdate: 11/26/04
Source: http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/364 /blair.shtml

Facing a general election five months from now, embattled British Prime Minister Tony Blair Tuesday took the opportunity of the annual Queen's Speech to unveil a "tough on crime" drug bill as a centerpiece of his pre-election legislative program. According to British press reports, Blair personally intervened to ensure that the drug bill is one of five measures to be given priority in the coming session of parliament.

Tony Blair hopes being "tough on drugs" will be the cure for post-Iraq election ills. Taken together, the five measures -- the drug bill, a national ID bill, a bill to set up a British version of the FBI, a bill to create new powers to ensure cleaner neighborhoods, and a bill to reduce bureaucracy in the schools, along with a bill that would extend the government's ability to hold terrorism suspects without charge -- are a strong signal that Blair will wage a campaign largely based on security and crime control issues. With crack cocaine-related crime on the rise and the British tabloids waxing hysterical about "anti-social behavior," being "tough on drugs" fits in rather nicely to Blair's electoral strategy.

The Blair drug bill would give police new powers to conduct compulsory drug tests on people arrested for minor crimes and would allow for them to be arrested and prosecuted on drug possession charges if they test positive. The bill foresees a rapid expansion in drug treatment capacity to deal with the expected influx of people ordered into treatment after being charged with "internal possession." It would also expand laws that allow the closure of crack dens as public nuisances to allow public housing councils to evict tenants who allow even casual drug use to take place on the property.

The bill targets some 200,000 "high-harm" drug users and street dealers, who the government believes are responsible for the bulk of drug-related crime. If adopted, the bill would double the number of police station drug tests to nearly half a million each year.

Coming the same week as reports that arrests for cannabis consumption have jumped markedly since the herb was reclassified last year as a less serious drug and arrests became optional for police, the Blair drug bill appears to signal a reversal of pro-drug reform policies and attitudes, at least in the Labor Party's campaign strategy.

While the drug bill has the support of Prime Minister Blair and his political advisors, who reportedly see it as key to playing on British voters' concerns about crime and "anti-social behavior," it is being attacked by drug reformers, police officials, public health specialists, opposition politicians, and even some members of the Blair team.

"The government has demonstrated a firm commitment to tackling drug abuse, but drug policy needs to be driven by a public health and social welfare agenda and not just crime," said Martin Barnes, chief executive of the reform group DrugScope (http://www.drugscope.org.uk). "We do not support a further extension of drug testing at this time. There is a need to first improve existing arrest referral and drug treatment programs with a greater emphasis on accessing treatment voluntarily and on after-care services upon completion to keep people off drugs."

Barnes was equally critical of the proposed "internal possession" law. "DrugScope is very concerned to hear of reports that the Government is considering extending the laws on possession to include the presence of drugs in the blood. Making the presence of drugs in the body will criminalize more drug users and would risk driving drug abuse further underground. The last thing we would want to see is people not accessing treatment or schemes such as needle exchanges for the fear of arrest," he said.

If anything, the reform group Transform (http://www.transform.org.uk) was even more critical. "The drug bill announced in the Queen's Speech is an enormously retrograde step," Transform chief executive Danny Kushlick told DRCNet. "It is the illogical conclusion of prohibition's overwhelming propensity to stimulate property crime, and it is the crudest of attempts to force heroin and crack users into treatment by making their drug use an offense. Imagine if we forced alcohol, prescription tranquilizer, or tobacco addicts into 'treatment.' There would be a huge public outcry," he said.

A bill mandating coerced drug treatment would be unnecessary if the government made treatment available on demand instead of trying to impose abstinence on drug users, Kushlick said. "If it were treatment, it would be overseen by Department of Health and its focus would be on health and well-being, not crime reduction. What is intended here is coerced abstinence. If a variety of effective treatment modalities were made available on a voluntary basis, there would be no need for coercion."

Kushlick called the proposed bill "a conjuring act" that would fail because it fails to address the underlying causes of crime and drug abuse. The bill is not favored by those who deal directly with the problem, he said. "It has no support in the drugs field, amongst police officers, backbench MPs, or even the Home Office," he said. "Let us hope that it is pre-election flag-waving to pander to the law and order lobby. We have enough on our hands campaigning for alternatives to prohibition without needing to respond to new draconian legislation."

The Blair drug bill is "ludicrous," Lord Victor Adebowale, head of the social welfare organization Turning Point, told the Daily Mirror on Monday. "We need to focus on making current treatment programs more effective, not dreaming up new offences to shovel people into the system," Adebowale said. "Instead, we see both the Conservative and Labor parties in a pre-election pantomime trying to prove who's toughest on drugs. It flies in the face of the evidence. The key is that you punish the crime and treat the addiction -- that distinction is starting to be lost through the war on drugs. Now we're talking about punishing for having drugs in the bloodstream."

British business interests are also critical of the bill. Former Confederation of British Industry head Adair Turner told the Mirror that rather than launching "unwinnable wars," it is time to end drug prohibition.

Labor MP Paul Flynn, a staunch supporter of ending drug prohibition, told the Mirror hard drugs should be made available by prescription. "A benign drug policy must follow the failure of prohibition," he said.

Criticism is even coming from within Downing Street, the prime minister's official residence. According to the Mirror, Blair aides in his Strategy Unit warned him in a secret report that the drug war is being lost and that a new crackdown will have no effect on crime rates. Instead, the Strategy Unit advisors said, cracking down on street sellers and users would only increase prices and cause crime rates to go up. "Heroin should be prescribed," they said.

But if the Blair drug bill is a step backward, it could have been worse. According to the Mirror, several Blair "big thinkers" recommended breaking the confidentiality agreements between drug users and social workers to allow them to pass information to police, allowing them to arrest more users.

"There were some seriously punitive ideas flying around among the blue skies thinkers which would not end up getting people into treatment," a "senior source" told the Mirror. "The Home Secretary and the PM are absolutely at one on this in that they want everything that is done to be linked to treatment. There is no point criminalizing people if you are not locking it into treatment. Otherwise we're back to the revolving door syndrome."

And while the bill was announced in time to allow Blair to claim his "tough on crime" credentials for the election, it will not be introduced to parliament until after the election. Home Secretary David Blunkett told reporters Tuesday he will wait for the elections. "It is not my intention to try and push a bill through this side of the general election, whenever the prime minister calls it," he said.

That means opponents of this backward step will have some time to try to kill it.

Newsbrief: Polls Find Canadian Majority Favoring Marijuana Legalization

Newsbrief: Polls Find Canadian Majority Favoring Marijuana Legalization
Pubdate: 11/26/04
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/364 /canada.shtml

The results of two surveys of Canadians came in this week, and both suggest the Canadian government is behind the curve with its plan to make possession of small amounts of marijuana a ticketable offense. When taken together, the two polls, one of attitudes toward marijuana law reform in Canada and one of marijuana usage rates, strongly indicate that pot has won broad social acceptance up north.

In a poll conducted for the Canadian National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (http://www.normlcanada.org) and released Thursday, 57% of respondents effectively backed legalization of the herb. Those persons said that persons caught with small amounts of marijuana should be "left alone." This poll marks the first time a Canadian majority supported removing pot possession from the realm of the courts and police.

According to the survey, only 8% of Canadians support sending pot smokers to jail, while 32% favor a scheme of tickets and fines rather than a criminal conviction. That minority position is the one embraced by Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin with his bill to create a system of fines for possession of less than 15 grams (one-half ounce).

Even more strikingly, 53% of those surveyed either "somewhat support" or "strongly support" taxing and regulating marijuana in the same way alcohol and tobacco are taxed and regulated. Only 37% opposed taxed and legalized marijuana, while 3% had no opinion and 9% mysteriously selected "neither."

The survey was conducted by the respected polling firm SES Canada Research for NORML Canada and has a 3.1% margin of error.

"A clear majority of Canadians believe that individuals who possess small quantities of marijuana for personal use should be left alone," said SES president Nikita James Nanos.

"The results show Canadians feel the government is going in the wrong direction" said NORML Canada executive director Jody Pressman in a statement accompanying the poll results. "The people are way ahead of government on this issue because they understand prohibition isn't working now and it never will. Taxing and regulating cannabis would generate billions of dollars in new revenue for social programs and finally remove the criminal element from the sale and distribution of marijuana," said Pressman.

A day earlier, the Canadian government reported that its surveys showed that marijuana use nationwide had nearly doubled in the last 10 years, with reported annual use rising from 7.4% in 1994 to 14% last year. The survey from the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse also found that among young people, 30% of 15-to-17-year-olds and 47% of 18-to-20-year-olds had toked up.

"Criminal prosecution and enforcement has only led to increased consumption of marijuana. We need a smarter strategy, starting with the recognition that the current approach has failed," said Pressman. "Criminalizing use has ruined people's lives, cost hundreds of millions, and only served to fatten police budgets and the profit margin for organized crime. Over three million Canadians use marijuana and they are tired of being treated like criminals. Government is out of touch with public opinion on marijuana," said Pressman. "Instead of perpetuating the failed policies of the past, NORML Canada calls on government to regulate and tax marijuana like beer, wine, and spirits."

For more on the NORML Canada poll, visit http://www.sesresearch.com/news/press_releases/PR%20November%2025%202004.pdf online.

To view the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse survey, go to http://www.ccsa.ca/pdf/ccsa-004804-2004.pdf online.

To read the Canadian government's "decrim" bill, C-17, go to http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/Bills_House_Government.asp?Language=E&Parl=38&Ses=1 and click on C-17.

Mark Findlay argues that the present psychological approach to prison programs is increasing the likelihood of re-offending and the threat to community safety.

In the early days of his third term as Premier of NSW, Bob Carr challenged his government to move away from current law and order politics and come up with a more progressive approach to punishment. Central to this would be a reconsideration of the place of the prison in criminal justice.

Prisons, by their nature and the communities they house, suffer more acutely from the social exclusion that characterises the underprivileged parts of Australian society. Without the exacerbation of a custodial experience, these characteristics alone militate against the successful reintegration of prisoners back into the community.

A revised punishment policy therefore requires more than retarding spiraling imprisonment rates. For those who do end up in gaol, and for those employed to manage them, the prison environment requires significant redevelopment, if inmates are not to leave prison more maladjusted than when they went in.

Violent, inhuman, unsafe, confrontational and exploitative prison settings will distort social and moral messages that are consistent with crime prevention.

Prison staff have either worked to ameliorate the negative influences of social exclusion amongst inmates, or in a regrettable minority of instances have contributed to the brutality of prison experience.

In NSW, prison education officers have had a significant influence in improving prisoner literacy rates over the years.

In so doing, they have addressed one of the simplest and yet most significant factors at work against prisoner reintegration. Prisoner education is recognised as one of the few correctional initiatives which seem to correlate with improved recidivism prospects.

Unfortunately, however, many cost-effective prison programs, like remedial reading, have recently suffered from a deprivation of resources and policy commitment, while expensive and selective cognitive behavioral initiatives have been favored by Australian prison administrations.

Psychological determinism has taken hold in contemporary prison rehabilitation thinking.

A reason for this may be that it holds out a causal connection between prison programs and the reduction of recidivism. More cynically, it also allows prison administrators to rationalise program resources and restrict program entry on the basis of inmate risk.

This psychological - or criminogenic needs model - of offender programming in prison argues for psychological intervention, which addresses criminogenic thinking, needs and risk on the basis of cognitive behaviour research.

Advocates of the model argue that a greater adherence to psychological justifications for rehabilitation will exclude other modes of explanation, such as social exclusion. They hold that, even the belief that rehabilitation in prison has failed can be overcome by psychological models such as this, which explain criminal behaviour and go on to address offender risks such as eventual re-offending.

Like the treatments and therapies of the 1960s that left rehabilitation in prison in taters, this new wave of behaviourist prisoner programming may be equally problematic.

The empirical research tends to suggest that the justification, that criminogenic needs approaches will reduce the re-offending of the most risky and the most dangerous, cannot be substantiated.

The ability to diagnose the cause of the inmates underlying criminal behaviour through psychological determinism is not sufficient to overturn more universal rights to program access for prisoners. And if this diagnostic capacity was routinely available, and it is not, then such predictive wisdom would be more economically applied to crime prevention than correctional remedies.

There are more successful and less discriminating approaches to corrections in prison. Victoria, for instance, is investing substantially in a best practice strategy to reduce re-offending.

Recidivism rates alone, as a performance measure of the effectiveness of offender programs, are too narrow an evaluation of rehabilitation practice in prison.

More realistic is an integrated approach, focusing on the climate of program delivery, program cost effectiveness, program integrity and treatment outcomes. Life quality issues are needed as a vital measure of the relevance of correctional programs in prison.

The Home Office as the administrator of English prisons is now required to meet modest targets in the improvement of prison life and the reduction of re-offending following release.

This has necessitated the development of a new context for corrections; one directed to the improvement in the quality of prison life and an investment in 'what works' with offenders.

A recent study to evaluate the quality of life in five English prisons from the perspective of staff and offenders found staff and prisoners agree on 'what matters' in assessing prison quality.

The study suggested there is a broad consensus about values - which include respect, fairness, decency and order; that prison life quality resembles the expectation for civil society; and that safety is a critical concern.

"To me", said one prisoner respondent, reflecting on his aspirations for prison treatment, "being treated with humanity means being provided adequate, reasonably comfortable and clean accommodation and being acknowledged as a person with individual needs, desires, concerns, strengths and weaknesses."

Prison staff would find it hard to argue against this. It is, however, the bigotry of public opinion about prisoners 'getting it too easy' which tends to endorse further social exclusion in prison. Paradoxically, this is what increases the likelihood of re-offending and the associated threat to community safety.

Mark Findlay is Professor of Criminal Justice at Sydney University. This article has been drawn from his chapter in the Evatt Foundation's new book, The State of the States 2004, to be launched at Sydney's Vibe Hotel (111 Goulburn Street) at 6pm on Tuesday 26 October (6pm for 6.30pm, all welcome, free).

Newsbrief: Rep. Souder Busily Fighting the "Good" Fight
11/26/04
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/364 /souder.shtml

Indiana Republican Congressman Mark Souder just can't get enough of the war on drugs. While Souder is best known as the author of the Higher Education Act's (HEA) anti-drug provision, which bars students with drug offenses from receiving federal financial aid, and is in the midst of an effort to "fix" that law so it only applies to people in school when their busts occurred, that has not stopped him from attempting to intervene in any number of other drug war issues.

Just two weeks ago, Souder was busy threatening Canada over pending legislation there that would reduce penalties for marijuana possession (http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/362/souder.shtml). Under the Canadian proposal, people possessing less than a half-ounce of marijuana would only be fined and not stuck with a criminal record. If Canada went that route, Souder warned, it could see border slowdowns and other nastiness from the Americans. Never mind that next door in Ohio, people can possess up to a quarter-pound of pot with only a ticket. One would think that busily keeping minor drug offenders out of college and threatening close allies over minor reforms would be enough to keep the self-described evangelical Christian congressman busy. One would be wrong. Using his perch as head of the drug policy subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee, Souder is speaking out on everything from methamphetamines to medical marijuana.

This week, Souder and five other Republican lawmakers filed a friend of the court brief in the landmark Raich v. Ashcroft medical marijuana case urging the Supreme Court to reject states' rights arguments and uphold the use of the interstate commerce clause as a tool for federal raids on medical marijuana patients and providers in states where it is legal. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in that case Monday.

Souder warned that a Supreme Court failure to uphold that reasoning would lead to a lessening of the federal government's ability to write and enforce national laws. "We've always had federal narcotics laws because of the Interstate Commerce Clause. This is a challenge that says states can not only change the schedule of prohibited drugs but they can override the Interstate Commerce Clause," he told the Indianapolis Star.

In his brief to the court, Souder warned that even limited permission to use medical marijuana "would undermine drug regulation by giving drug traffickers a new strategy to evade arrest, creating geographic 'safe havens' for drug dealers to base their operations, increasing the risk of diversion from 'medical' use to purely recreational trafficking, increasing the supply and lowering the price of marijuana and potentially increasing the demand for the drug through reduced public perception of marijuana's harms."

That same week, the conservative congressman was also focused on methamphetamines. In a November 18 interview with the Oregonian newspaper, which recently ran a series of special reports on the drug, Souder said his subcommittee is working on a comprehensive package of anti-meth legislation to be introduced in the next session of Congress. That same day, Souder's subcommittee held a hearing in Washington to examine strategies for stopping the spread of the stimulant.

With meth having pushed its way East across the continent in recent years, the political will to enact tough legislation is growing, Souder said. "Now is the time we push. You've now reached a threshold. It's crossed the Mississippi," Souder said of the drug's rapid spread. "You have a majority of Congress now interested in this. Meth has not been a focus," Souder said. "Everybody's scrambling to catch up with what is happening at the ground level."

Look for new, repressive legislation to emerge from Souder's committee shortly. It should be a combination of increased penalties for meth possession and manufacture and new restrictions on the chemical precursors used to make the stuff.

Nice guy, eh?

Alaska Marijuana Regulation Initiative is On
10/1/04
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/356/alaska.shtml

Alaska is already in the vanguard of marijuana law reform, and a marijuana initiative on the November ballot could see the state pushing the envelope even further. Right now, Alaska is the only state in the union to have even partially legalized the possession of marijuana -- the state's highest courts have recently reaffirmed that possession of up to four ounces in one's home is protected by the privacy provisions of the state constitution. The November initiative, officially known as Ballot Measure 2, would remove all criminal penalties for marijuana possession, production, or sales and require the state legislature to craft regulations to govern the legal sale of the weed.

A homegrown effort to legalize marijuana in Alaska failed in 2000, garnering only 41% of the vote, but this time around, initiative organizers have removed language that cost votes in 2000 and have engineered a campaign that is slick, professional, and well-financed. This year's effort brings together both local activists and a national organization, the Marijuana Policy Project (http://www.mpp.org). Grassroots activists have formed Alaskans for Rights and Responsibilities (ARR) as a successor organization to Hemp in Alaska, the group that ran the 2000 initiative, while MPP has formed Alaskans for Marijuana Regulation and Control (http://www.regulatemarijuanainalaska.org). The two groups have joined together to support yet a third entity, Yes on 2, which is using a university professor, a former corrections official, and a prominent former Republican to campaign for the initiative.

Gov. Frank Murkowski, Attorney General Greg Renkes, and assorted drug warriors are grumbling aloud about the measure. "The governor cannot use state resources to campaign for or against a measure, but that does not stop him from expressing his opinion," said Murkowski spokesperson Becky Hultberg. "He strongly opposes this measure. He has been very active on substance abuse issues, and he views marijuana as a gateway to other drug abuse," she told DRCNet. But despite Murkowski's concern, there is at this point no organized opposition to the measure.

"In 2000, there was a lot of infighting and disorganization," said David Finkelstein, treasurer for AMRC. "We tried to resolve that early on and I think we did pretty well. The campaign had its grand opening on the 16th, and a couple of hundred people came. Even though there are two groups, there is one office, one campaign, one message," he told DRCNet. "Privacy is the main theme we will be hitting," he explained. "That was the basis of the court decisions, and privacy is an important concern for Alaskans," he said. "But we will also talk about the need to regulate marijuana."

"Yes on 2 is the public face of the campaign," said Finkelstein. That public face is one designed to appeal to Alaska voters, he said. "Our lead spokesman is Bill Parks, a former legislator and deputy commissioner of corrections, and Ken Jacobus, the treasurer for Yes on 2, is the former attorney for the state Republican Party. We also have Dr. Tim Hinterberger from the university acting as a spokesman."

"We're very pleased and grateful that the different elements have come together like this," said Hinterberger, an associate professor for the biomedical program at the University of Alaska, "and David Finkelstein is largely to thank for that. Too often there is squabbling between local activists and outsiders, but here in Alaska we have bridged those differences and are all on the same page now."

The campaign is spending big money on television and radio commercials, said Finkelstein. "We started running TV ads this month, and we will do TV and radio through the election," he said. "We will run as many as we can, and we will also try to get more newsprint, radio, and mail advertising, but that is dependent on how much money we raise," he said.

While no polling has been done, activists are cautiously optimistic that the measure can pass. "Alaskans are independent and have a strong sense of personal responsibility and personal freedom," said Hinterberger. "If we can't get this passed in Alaska, we aren't trying hard enough."

AMRC's Finkelstein was a bit more guarded. "I'd say we're behind but it's reachable," he said. "We've done a lot of voter contact, we've revised the language of the initiative, and we're running a strong campaign. This will be a tough one to win, but I think we're close."

That view is shared by at least one neutral observer, University of Alaska associate professor of political science Carl Shepro. "Many here have partaken, and there is also a strong sense of privacy," he told DRCNet. "The governor opposes this, but he is very unpopular right now, so I don't know if that will help defeat the measure. It could very well pass."

While Alaska may lead the nation in liberalizing the pot laws, it hasn't gone far enough, said Hinterberger. "The situation is tenuous here because some members of the legislature and Attorney General Renkes are talking about trying to change the law," he explained. "Also, the law says you can have four ounces, but you can't purchase it. In that sense, the law is really incomplete. Unless the right to possess marijuana is a workable right, it's just a fake right."

And while a victory at the polls in November would be huge, that would not be the end of the affair, said Hinterberger. "A victory in November would be truly revolutionary," he said, "but we will still have to get the legislature to play ball." Under the language of the initiative, it is up to the legislature to create a system of regulated sale and manufacture of the weed. "I suspect the legislature may rather see it all blow up than regulate it properly. Even with a victory in November, our work is just beginning."

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