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| The War on Drugs, Page One | |||||
This page consists of links to numerous web sites which have information concerning the use and effects of psychoactive drugs and concerning the consequences to society of the criminalization of drug usage. Numerous documents that were linked to in earlier versions of this page have moved or have disappeared. None of the links below are guaranteed to remain valid, so if you find a page that you wish to see again it's best to save it to disk.
Links on this page were added during 1996-2003. For similar links added after 2003 see:
- DE-CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
The CIA undermines and assassinates popular leaders abroad and at home. This organization that routinely gets away with murder finds little challenge in dominating the world's narcotics trade. The U.S. CIA and DOD usher in half of the narcotics that come into this country — all the while advocating "toughening" the drug laws that make this trade so obscenely profitable. It is time something was done about this ever more transparent problem.
- Sentences handed down in February glassblower busts
In Ashcroft's fascist Amerika simply making glass pipes and telling the world about it can lead to a prison sentence, or at least, to house arrest, probation, the loss of your business and hardship for your employees. - Joint operation
Under pressure from both Berlin and the Hague, Dutch coffee shop culture is under threat, writes Andrew Osborn.
If people want to smoke cannabis then the German government has no right to stop them, except for the legal right it gives itself, contrary to the wishes of a large number of tax-paying German citizens.
- Justices Reject Govt. Medical Marijuana Appeal
The U.S. Supreme Court let stand on Tuesday [2003-10-14] a ruling that the government cannot revoke the federal prescription licenses of doctors who recommend medical marijuana to sick patients.
- Forty-second ecstasy tablet test developed
- Ottawa's pot rules unconstitutional, court rules
- Efficacy — Drug Policy Reform
- Afghan military tied to drug trade
- BBC: NHS patients to be given cannabis
- Gyrus: The Smoke Demon
- Jim Fitzsimons: A World Gone To Pot
Cannabis prohibition reveals the cowardice, lack of vision and wanton stupidity of the people we allow to run the world.
- Busted For Pot In Government Car
Tijuana printers Francisco Rivera and Alfonso Calderon ... were falsely imprisoned as drug runners after buying a car from the U.S. Marshals loaded with hidden marijuana. ...
"I don't think [buying a car] 'as is' to the normal consumer means, 'If I buy it and it's stuffed full of drugs that I'm unaware of and I get arrested, that's my problem,'" says Teresa Trucchi, attorney for Rivera and Calderon.
- Cigarette brands 'addictive like crack' [link expired]
Like crack cocaine, freebase nicotine vaporises and passes rapidly through the lungs into the bloodstream. Because it reaches the brain so quickly, it is thought to be more addictive than normal nicotine, which stays in the form of sooty smoke particles.
Scientists at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, US, compared 11 brands of cigarette, and discovered that some contained 10 to 20 times higher levels of freebase nicotine than experts had previously been led to believe.
- DrugSense, with a link to their DrugSense Weekly, a "concise review of the week's most signficant news." See also their Drug War Clock.
- Russ Kick: Censorship In Paradise: New Zealand Thought Police Seize Books From Loompanics
Let's emphasize one of the lessons we've learned about New Zealand: If you get caught with three marijuana plants, you will pay a $350 fine. If you get caught with three books about marijuana, you will pay a $6,000 fine. Kiwi tokers, if they're prudent, may want to stick to just smoking the stuff rather than reading about it.
- Nick Sandberg: An Introduction to Ibogaine
Studies suggest that ibogaine has considerable potential in the treatment of addiction to heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, methadone, and alcohol, with some suggestion that it further be useful in treating tobacco dependence.
- The Peace That Passeth
A review in the New York Times by Christine Kenneally of Richard Davenport-Hines' 576-page book The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics.
Davenport-Hines assembles strong evidence to support his belief that criminalization has created the modern drug problem. Indeed, history offers few examples of punitive legislation curing addiction or ending trafficking. He contends that because risk is closely tied to profit, enforcing laws against drug trafficking actually increases the economic reward for those willing to run an illegal business. The facts he cites bear him out: world coca production doubled between 1985 and 1996. Opium production tripled.
- U.S. can't punish doctors for pot advice, court says
The government argued that doctors were aiding and abetting criminal activity for recommending marijuana because it is an illegal drug under federal narcotics laws. But the appeals court said doctors have a constitutional right to speak candidly with their patients about marijuana without fear of government sanctions.
- The 7am.com poll asked "Should marijuana be legalized?" 63% saidYes
7am.com yanked this poll result from their Historic Polls page. Perhaps they didn't want it to get out that nearly 2/3rds of the people voted in favor of legalization of marijuana. So much for democracy. - Time Magazine also conducted a similar poll:
Marijuana as Medicine
"Do you think the federal government should legalize the medicinal use of marijuana?"At 2000-05-08 the poll was: - 75.16% Yes
- 19.51% No
- 1.21% Not sure
- 4.09% Dave's not here, man
Over three-quarters of the 30,000+ respondents want legalization of the medicinal use of marijuana. The U.S. government refuses to consider this. What's this tell us about the U.S. as a (ha!ha!) democratic country?
Sometime in 2001 or 2002 Time Magazine removed this poll. Jeez — just goes to show, whenever there's a poll on whether marijuana should be legalized, and the people of course vote yes, the results of the poll are yanked.
- The Silk Roads and Cecil Rhodes, a page of links to some interesting web pages, including:
- The Opium Drug Wars
- Modern Drug Traffic on the Silk Roads
- Nazis & Drugs
- US Government & LSD
- Government Drug Traffic
- From Walter Reed to Chestnut Lodge, From Frank Olson to MKULTRA
- Arms Trade, Drug Dealing, & Terrorism
- Afganistan Drug Traffic
- Drug Trafficking and the Silk Roads
- New Scientist: Marijuana Special Report
Past commissions and reports have tried to clear the clouds of unreason but have been universally ignored. In this special section we make our own attempt to tackle the key issues, including findings from the Netherlands where possession of small amounts of marijuana has been legal for over a decade. Our report homes in on four key claims frequently made by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse. As its name implies, this government institute researches — and spends — hard in pursuit of the harmful effects of drugs. Its data also have a vast influence on UN policy. But as our special section reveals, simple statements are never quite as simple as they seem ...
- Reuters, 2002-07-19: Calif. Court: No Prosecution for Medical Pot Users
In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court reasserted the voter-approved law granting ill patients the right to use marijuana for medical purposes without fear of prosecution. ...
California voters passed Proposition 215, or the Medical Use of Marijuana initiative, in 1996. The law gave patients the right to possess marijuana if it was prescribed by a doctor for ailments such as glaucoma, AIDS and cancer. Eight other states — Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Hawaii and Washington — have since passed similar laws. ... However, a 2001 US Supreme Court ruling found that federal drug laws do not recognize these state initiatives ...
In 1999, the Institute of Medicine reviewed the medical literature on marijuana's health effects. "Scientific data indicate the potential therapeutic value of cannabinoid drugs," the report concluded. "Cannabinoids would be moderately well suited for particular conditions, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, and AIDS wasting."
- While the rest of the world is progressing (except, of course, for fascist Amerika) those dim-witted drongos in the Australian government are moving backwards (as usual under the orders of their masters in Washington):
SYDNEY (Reuters) [2002-04-21]: Australian police arrested five people who defiantly puffed away in public on what they claimed was the country's biggest marijuana joint, but it turned out to be nothing more than tobacco and harmless legal herbs.
The 36-inch so-called "community joint" — rolled using brown paper as wrapping — was part of a chaotic demonstration in Darwin Saturday by the Network Against Prohibition (NAP) against a planned tightening of drug laws. ...
The NAP wants the government to accept marijuana as an integral part of Northern Territory lifestyle but tighter legislation against those suspected of dealing is due to come into force next month.
- BBC, 2001-11-21: Senior officers back 'softer' drug laws
MDMA (ecstasy) is to be changed from a 'Class A' drug to a 'Class B' drug in the U.K. Tony Blair's Home Office bureaucrats are moving in the right direction but are still really quite out of touch with social reality.
- BBC, 2001-10-23: Cannabis laws set to be eased
And, indeed, they have been, somewhat. The legal status of cannabis in the U.K. is that it is now a 'Class C' drug instead of a 'Class B' drug. Not exactly decriminalization, but the U.K. government has finally admitted that it can no longer continue to arrest and jail cannabis users if it wishes to retain any degree of respect in the eyes of the people (not that it has much anyway).
- Lester Grinspoon, M.D.: On the Near Hanging of a Medical Marihuana User
Malaysia: like the U.S.A., a country best avoided by those who value their liberty.
- High Court Says Suspects Can Be Barred From Home [link expired]
Giving the police new powers to search and seize evidence, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday [2001-02-20] that officers can stop suspects from entering their own homes while the officers get a search warrant. ... It took about two hours to get a warrant. The officers then conducted a search and found marijuana and drug paraphernalia. McArthur was charged with possessing less than 2.5 grams [less than a tenth of an ounce] of marijuana and possessing drug paraphernalia ...
Everything that the Nazis did in the 1930s in Germany was legal — because they passed laws to legitimate anything they wanted to do, or because they got corrupt judges to interpret the law as the Nazis wanted. The same is happening in the U.S.A. today. The main difference is that U.S. federal government officials don't wear swastika armbands. But the mentality is the same: the willingness to use unlimited violence to enforce state suppression of individual rights and liberties.
- Grugyn Silverbristle: Which Drugs are Drugs?
The War on Drugs is a war against the American people, indeed, against all the people of the world, an excuse for government and industry and the AMA to mandate themselves a global drug-cartel, a monopoly enforced by the U.S. Military. The AMA gets to control the pain-killers, a kind of privatized estate-tax, the pharmaceuticals get to addict us all to their antibiotics, and the government gets to confiscate our liberties under the Bill of Rights.
- Guardian Unlimited Special Report: Drugs in Britain
- Drugs tsar hails new detector
- Softer drug laws vetoed by Labour
- Straw tries to soften rejection of drug report
- Cannabis will remain illegal, says tsar
- Why are they so afraid?
- Drugs tsar hails new detector
- Ministers reject U.K. drugs law overhaul
The [British] government has rejected the key findings of a landmark report into drugs policy which recommended the easing of penalties for possession of soft drugs and a reclassification of ecstasy and LSD. ... The report argued that penalties for the possession of cannabis did more harm than the drug itself ... The inquiry team, which included two serving chief constables, called for possession of cannabis to be made a non-imprisonable offence. ... Other suggestions such as a reduction in jail sentences for possession of heroin and cocaine from a maximum of seven years down to 12 months were also rejected. ... Responding to the news a spokesman for the national drugs and legal advice service Release said: "Public opinion is way ahead of the government and will ultimately be the driving force."
- U.K. Drugs Prices — 1997, 1998, 1999
- Human Rights and the Drug War
Dedicated to the Prisoners of the Drug War and their families, and to those who are working to regain their freedom and restore respect for all Human Rights.
- "War on Drugs" POW Amy Pofahl has been released after nine years in prison thanks to a Bill Clinton clemency order. This was nine years too many!
- Things A Republican Can Do With A Straw, Besides Voting In Iowa
And so the question of [George W.] Bush's possible drug use is debated as roughly equal to Bill Clinton's sex life: both are framed as personal issues that may or may not have public implications ... There is a difference, however. ... Oral sex is not a felony. ... Cocaine possession is. The state of Texas alone — where George W. Bush is [was] Governor — locks up about 15,000 people each year for drug offenses. One recent study by the Texas Justice Policy Council found that 64% percent of those convicted of cocaine possession in Texas were holding less than *half a gram.* ... Do the math, and George Bush, in his term as Governor of the state of Texas, has presided over the felony imprisonment of roughly 10,000 people for precisely the same activity that he is now increasingly hinting he engaged in himself.
- BBC: Belgium to soften cannabis policy
Health Minister Magda Alvoet said the new legislation ... would bring Belgium in line with other European countries which are easing their restrictions on the personal use of the drug.
And one more middle finger to the U.S. government.
- BBC: Ministers ignoring drugs issue
Ministers are being accused of ignoring calls for a serious debate on radical changes to the way the police and the courts deal with drug abuse. The assertion is coming from Dame Ruth Runciman, the author of a Police Foundation report issued in March last year [2000] which suggested that people caught in possession of cannabis, ecstasy and LSD should not be sent to prison. The government, while never indicating that it was willing to change its position on soft drugs, has still not responded formally to that report. ... The two-and-a-half year investigation said that cannabis users should not be criminalised. It called for a new crime of drug dealing to target those profiting from illegal drugs.
- The "war on drugs" is in part a war on African Americans (citizens of the U.S. persecuted by their own government).
Racial minorities comprised a strikingly disproportionate percentage of the prison population. African Americans constituted 46.5 percent of state prisoners and 40 percent of federal prisoners, although they constituted only 12 percent of the national population. — Human Rights Watch World Report 2001: United States
- Don't be a dope
If you're going to smoke a joint, don't drive home - Legal Challenge to Cannabis Laws [link expired] (a page from the Liberty website).
Liberty today announced that it was searching for the right case to challenge the laws on cannabis. The human rights organisation has three test cases in mind. They all involve issues around the possession of small amounts of cannabis for personal use. The first involves a challenge to the powers of the police to stop and search a person on the street. The second involves the powers of the police and the courts to forcibly search people homes. The third, and most important, will be challenge to the law that criminalises the possession of small amounts of cannabis for personal use.
- Drug War: Covert Money, Power & Policy
- Malawi Rastas' marijuana struggle
- The Spirit of Amptone.com
Includes: Amp Tone and the Experience of Ego Death - scotland yardies
- The Conviction Of The Cambridge Two Is Bonkers
- BBC: The Global Drugs Trade
- Portugal Legalises Drug Use
The Portuguese Government has voted to decriminalise the consumption of illegal drugs such as cannabis and heroin. ... Portugal becomes the third member of the European Union, after Spain and Italy, to decriminalise the consumption and possession of small quantities of drugs.
- Quality Marijuana and Hemp Information from CANNABIS.COM.
- Drug-Crazy
The Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act ... would permit the police to search your residence, vehicle, or workplace and to take "intangible evidence" (by making a copy of your computer's hard drive, for example) without telling you. ... It would [also] punish persons who so much as mention an Internet site that sells drug paraphernalia. Even anti-drug crusaders who listed some drug-related Web sites as examples of the heinous stuff out there would be breaking the law.
- Think for Yourself
- The U.S. is gearing up for a real war in Colombia (at taxpayers' expense, of course;
another Vietnam coming down the line?). It's the Colombian army vs. the FARC guerrillas vs. the right-wing paramilitaries (all are heavily involved in cocaine trafficking). Here are some links:
- Colombia: A Carpet Of Cocaine
- Are We Fools Rushing Into Colombia?
- Toll of militia terror on rise in Colombia
- Major cocaine seizure in Colombia
- Colombia: A War Without End?
- Colombia: The Drug War's Latest Perverse Priority
... putting $1.7 billion into Colombia, in the middle of a civil war, is more than misguided — it's nuts.
- War on Drugs: Counterinsurgency Operations in Colombia
- Chicago Tribune: Guerrillas, Drugs and Uncle Sam
- Dr. John Beresford: The Nazi Comparison
In the summer of 1938, when I was 14, my parents sent me on a two-week vacation with a family in a village in north-west Germany. There were Mr. and Mrs. Otting, their daughter Irmgard, and the youngest son Wolfgang, who wore his Hitler Jugend uniform at Wednesday night meetings. ... Every five or six houses or apartments had an informant who could sift through mail, collect gossip, and pay a visit to make sure the householder did not have suspicious material lying around. Also, schoolchildren were taught to report suspicious behavior to the police. ... The economy was great. ... The newspapers were full of praise for the Nazi system. A weekly periodical with pictures showed who the Untermenschen were, the underclass of people who had no place in decent society. ... The universities had their share of academics who endorsed Nazi policy. Doctors, engineers, race specialists, and others spelled out theories which gave the Nazis a green light. At 14 I was barely aware of all this. Yet by the end of my two weeks with the Ottings I had a feeling that to this day remains hard to describe. I took this feeling home to England, where I promptly forgot it. ...
One day something happened. I realized that every time I left the monastery and entered the United States I was struck with a weird feeling that left as soon as I re-entered Canada. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was as real as day. When the meaning of this realization dawned, it hit me like a ton of bricks. The feeling I had acquired in Nazi Germany and forgotten more than half a century before was back. ... The feeling told me everything. The exponent of democracy had fallen on hard times. America was treading the same path as Nazi Germany. The War on Drugs and Hitler's war on anyone he took exception to — the symptoms in the two cases were identical.
- United Nations General Assembly: World Drug Problem
"A drug-free world, we can do it", says drug warrior,
Mr. Pino Arlacchi,the Executive Director.
Jesus! — what's he been smoking? Must be good stuff!
(Note that these days Nazis wear suits and ties, and smile a lot.)This site also has MEASURES TO ENHANCE INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION TO COUNTER THE WORLD DRUG PROBLEM. They're getting pretty desperate in their attempt to achieve a world-wide totalitarian dictatorship. Soon they'll be urging all nations to introduce concentration camps for users and the firing squad for dealers. But that's not really necessary; just lock them up in a tuberculosis-ridden prison for ten years and they're unlikely to come out alive — which seems to be exactly what the U.S. government intends. Heinrich Himmler would certainly have approved this method of extermination, though he might have faulted it for taking too long to produce the desired result (why not just gas them?). Want your relatives and friends to end up in another Dachau or Treblinka? That's where this is headed.
- Cannabis 'helps MS sufferers'
Cannabis has been proven, for the first time, to be an effective treatment for the symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS). ...
UK scientists have shown that a compound in cannabis can prevent muscle tremor and spasticity caused by MS. - The Drug Workshop
Understanding and accepting that drug taking is a basic motivational drive will free one from the guilt about taking drugs. Guilt about drug use prevents the integration of drug use into everyday life ... Hierarchical authority relies on such ignorance and anomie to promote and disseminate drug guilt, i.e. just say no! ... Once free from drug guilt people are better able to understand, take control, and harvest those benefits which accrue with every successful/euphoric drug experience. ... Such controlled drug taking is a form of empowerment and can lead to experiences of self-actualization.
- Alexander Cockburn: Crazed Cops, Fallen Heroes
Those endless wars on crime and drugs ... have engendered not merely our 2 million prisoners but a vindictive hysteria that pulses on the threshold of homicide in the bosoms of many of our uniformed law enforcers.
- The Drug Czar is manipulating what you see on TV
You can download the full gory details (all 53 KB of it) here: DRUG MONEY: How The White House Secretly Hooked Network TV On Its Anti-Drug Message and other articles. - The General Invades (and Insults and Infuriates) The Netherlands
- Ex-Top Cop Joins Drug Legalisation Campaign
Francis Wilkinson, who retired as Gwent's top policeman earlier this year and has recently spoken out against the [U.K.] Government's prohibition policy on drugs ... joins a former head of Scotland Yard's Drug Squad, Edward Ellison ... to call for drug prohibition to be replaced with an effective system of regulation and control.
- Renee Boje's Legal Defense Fund
A U.S. woman is seeking political asylum in Canada. - The Compassion Club
- How to Grow Medical Marijuana
Download the book (PDF format) — rather interesting. - The Peter McWilliams Homepage
Includes Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do
- Mike Gray's Drug Crazy: How We Got Into This Mess and How We can Get Out
"The true story that Mike Gray tells so effectively is indeed stranger than fiction. Who would believe that a democratic government would pursue for eight decades a failed policy that produced tens of millions of victims and trillions of dollars of illicit profits for drug dealers; cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars; increased crime and destroyed inner cities; fostered widespread corruption and violations of human rights and all with no success in achieving the stated and unattainable objective of a drug-free America."
— Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate, Fellow, Hoover Institution - Noam Chomsky: The war on (certain) drugs
So internationally, "the war on drugs" provides a cover for intervention. Domestically, it has little to do with drugs but a lot to do with distracting the population, increasing repression in the inner cities, and building support for the attack on civil liberties.
- Howard Marks ON-LINE
This site has Howard Marks' application for the position of U.K. Drug Czar (PDF format).
- Jay Lindberg: The Drug War: An Industrial Policy in America
If the rich control the levers of power in America, it is safe to assume they control the drug war agenda as well. This project addresses the drug war as an economic policy in America. A war against American citizens for profit.
- DrugPeace.org
- WAR ON DRUGS — War on American citizens
- Is Truth a Casualty of the Drug War?
- Frank Morales: The Militarization of the Police
The program, entitled, "Technology Transfer From Defense: Concealed Weapons Detection," calls for the transfer of military technology to domestic police organizations to better fight "crime."
- FBI Probes Fatal Drug Raid in California
Grandfather, 64, Shot in Back In Drug Raid - Chapter 42 from Alexander Shulgin's PIHKAL
In Germany the Jewish population was attacked and beaten, some of them to death, in a successful effort to focus all frustrations and resentments on one race of people as the cause of the nation's difficulties. It forged a national mood of unity and single-mindedness, and it allowed the formation of a viciously powerful fascist state. The persecution of the Jews, needless to say, failed to solve the social problems of Germany. In our present-day America, the drug-using population is being used as the scapegoat in a similar way, and I fear that the end point might well be a similar state of national consensus, without our traditional freedoms and safeguards of individual rights, and still lacking resolution of our serious social troubles.
- The Nation, September 20, 1999, has a forum on the theme of BEYOND LEGALIZATION: NEW IDEAS FOR ENDING THE WAR ON DRUGS
- Michael Massing: It's Time for Realism
- Peter Kornbluh: Life of a Scandal
- Mike Gray: Perils of Prohibition
- Elliott Currie: Yes, Treatment, But...
- Michael Massing Responds
- The Successes and Failures of George Bush's War on Drugs
- 'White lies' about the drug war in Colombia
The answer to the drug problem is not McCaffrey's war in Latin America. It is victory for progressive movements like the FARC that are fighting to overturn capitalism's poisonous influence on human society. And that goes for here [the U.S.], too.
- The Drugs Problem, Chapter 26 of Gregory Sams' Uncommon Sense.
- Amnesty International reports US Prisons 'Use Electric Shock Belts For Torture'
- The New Statesman Essay — Good drugs, Bad Drugs
Joshua Wolf Shenk on the fractured logic behind America's war on narcotics - Four-page summary of the Effective National Drug Control Strategy (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader).
- James Arthur's Ethno-Mycology
In society today it has become taboo to present the expansion of consciousness by drug/plant usage of any kind in a positive light.
- Drug War Tables and Charts
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At this time the Gulag Archipelago, the scattered islands of prisons in which hundreds of thousands of non-violent people are locked away for half their lives for their opposition to the disgraceful and immoral policies of a tyrannical and dictatorial state, is not in Russia, rather it is in the United States of America. This is a crime against humanity for which the government of the United States is and will long be despised.
America, with less than 5 percent of the world population, has a quarter of the world's prisoners. There are six times as many Americans behind bars as are imprisoned in the 12 countries that make up the entire European Union, even though those countries have 100 million more citizens than the United States. Our jails and prisons have become the 51st state, with a greater combined population than Alaska, North Dakota and South Dakota. — Editorial, San Jose Mercury News, 1999-12-31.
- Richard Glen Boire: Copitalism: Police State Promoters and Profiteers
- Dale R. Gowin: Confessions of an Amerikan LSD Eater
- A Travesty of Justice — The Story of Will Foster
On Jan. 16 [1997], a jury found Foster guilty of four drug felonies and one misdemeanor. Jurors handed him a 70-year term and a $50,000 fine for cultivating marijuana. He received a two-year sentence and a $10,000 fine for possessing marijuana with intent to distribute, a 20-year term for possessing marijuana in the presence of a child who lived in the residence ... A family man who has never been convicted of any violent crime. He is now locked up with Rapists, Robbers and Murderers! THIS SURELY ISN'T JUSTICE! Where is there justice in locking away a family man who has tried to do his best all of his life? In light of Will's plight and others with the same fate ... This Page is Dedicated to William Foster and all others unjustly imprisoned for healing themselves with the Herb Cannabis!
- Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Patient Gets 93 Years
But there is hope for Mr. Foster, and it rests with us. It seems that the trial judge, B R Beasley, erroneously disallowed the testimony of two witnesses for the defense. ... If these witnesses were, in fact, improperly excluded from the proceedings, Mr. Foster has a chance to have the trial thrown out on appeal and a new trial ordered.
Light a Candle
Drew, Dane and Dad A web site dedicated to the victims of this despicable drug war, including the families of those locked up. This site includes the following poem by 14-year-old Dane, whose father is currently in jail on a marijuana conviction:
In this country, the Land of the Free they took my dad, far away from me.... During his life, in this Land of Liberty, never hurt anybody, he had taught me. So tell me, from sea to shining sea, pot smokers are in jail, how can this be? When weapons are legal, marijuana is not, one gets you high, but the other gets you shot. As he sits behind bars.... oh amber waves of grain.... send my dad home, stop my tears, heal my pain.
Mark - Mark Ingraham was a minor participant in a marijuana growing operation. Despite being a first-time, non-violent offender, 50 years old, he received a mandatory ten years (with no possibility for parole, twice as long as the average sentence handed down for manslaughter) in the federal penitentiary at Lexington, Kentucky. In poor health, Mark died of an esophageal hemorrhage on 1997-08-07, four years into his ten-year sentence.
- Prisoners of the U.S. War on Drugs — a photo gallery.
- Eighty-six of the many thousands of prisoners of the "War on Drugs". Pick a few at random, and reflect upon the viciousness on the part of the government of the United States of America, its Eichmann-like functionaries, and all who profit from the "War on Drugs", that underlies this evil.
- The Committee on Unjust Sentencing [Page disappeared]
It is wrong to send an 18-year-old to prison for ten or twenty years for smoking pot and running a small business supplying pot to friends. It is wrong to sentence a mother of young children to prison for twenty years for sending LSD on blotter paper through the mail. It is wrong to torture black youth with ten, twenty, or forty years of imprisonment for dabbling in even small amounts of cocaine.
Do the legislators who created these laws and those who enforce them, have any conscience?
- THE COMMITTEE ON UNJUST SENTENCING: STATEMENT OF AIM
- John Beresford, MD: Why I Am In The Prisoner Business
... The enormity of this injustice, upheld by a tricky interpretation of the word 'mixture,' opened my eyes to the real meaning of the American criminal-justice system as Congress and the courts allow it to be practiced today.
- The November Coalition
Americans must stop talking of a "war" on drugs for a war upon the American people is a war no one can win. The results of more than two decades of this unwinnable war has brought only hostility and division. We must shift to an agenda of peace and seek terms for a lasting reconciliation and our intent should be a safer America - not one that is simply less free.
This site has:
- Atrocities of the Drug War .
- James Bovard's December 1997 Playboy article: Time Out for Justice
With our current moral-judicial system, talking about drugs disapproved of by politicians is a worse crime than killing citizens. ... The number of people in federal and state prisons on drug charges has increased tenfold since 1980; since 1987, drug defendants have accounted for nearly three quarters of all new federal prisoners.
- Dissenting Opinions of Federal Judges
- Federal report reignites medical marijuana debate
- The Wall — from where the names above, of prisoners of the "War on Drugs", were obtained.
- Atrocities of the Drug War .
- Amnesty International's
Rights for All — Chapter 4: Human Rights
Violations in U.S. Prisons and Jails
Every day in prisons and jails across the USA, the human rights of prisoners are violated. In many facilities, violence is endemic. In some cases, guards fail to stop inmates assaulting each other. In others, the guards are themselves the abusers, subjecting their victims to beatings and sexual abuse. Prisons and jails use mechanical, chemical and electro-shock methods of restraint that are cruel, degrading and sometimes life-threatening.
- Families Against Mandatory Minimums
- FCNetwork — for and about families of offenders.
- Organisation for Sensible and Effective Prison Policy
- Prison Connections
A newsletter of prison activism in New England. - Families to Amend California's 3-Strikes
"Contrary to General McCaffrey's claims, the drug war still relies overwhelmingly on incarcerating drug users and trying to interdict drugs - the two least effective methods of reducing drug abuse," said Kevin Zeese, President of Common Sense for Drug Policy and one of the report's lead authors. "We know what works, but General McCaffrey keeps investing in strategies that are destroying families, hurting kids and undermining the Constitution."The Network of Reform Groups (NRG) - a coalition of two dozen organizations working for more sensible drug policies, who collectively represent over 100,000 people - examined government data and independent research, concluded that the drug war has not deterred children from using illegal drugs, nor has it resulted in fewer deaths and injuries from drug use.
The report found that:
The report recommends that the Drug Czar
- The U.S. government spent $3.6 billion on the drug war in 1988, and will spend $17.9 billion in 1999 - $2 out of $3 are spent on law enforcement.
- From 1985 to 1995, 85 percent of the increase in the federal prison population was due to drug convictions. Due to mandatory sentencing drug offenders spend more time in jail (82.2 months) than rapists (73.3 months).
- Drug overdose deaths are up 540 percent since 1980, 33 people per day are infected with HIV from injection drug use and it is becoming the engine for a new epidemic -- Hepatitis C.
- The price of heroin and cocaine has dropped since 1981, while purity of both drugs has increased.
- Create a non-partisan panel of experts to evaluate current drug control efforts. All options from legalization to prohibition should be considered.
- Provide funding for drug treatment on request and require coverage of drug treatment by health insurance.
- Increase funding for drug abuse prevention and redirect DARE funding into more effective programs.
- Increase drug treatment services for women.
- End the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine as well as racially disproportionate law enforcement.
- Allow judges to sentence drug offenders by eliminating "mandatory minimum" drug sentences.
- Provide federal funding for needle exchange programs.
- Reverse the trend toward cutting school budgets to invest in prisons.
- Enact "family friendly" laws that keep families together, kids in school and social networks intact.
— quoted from DrugSense Weekly, March 5, 1999, #88
- Peter Webster: Rethinking Drug Prohibition: Don't Look for U.S. Govt. Leadership
Drug Prohibition is now preponderantly about the Prohibition of marijuana, so the logical first step for Europe and the rest of the world will begin with not just the decriminalization of marijuana use which will leave the black market intact, and thus the "reform" open to legitimate criticism, but the repeal of Marijuana Prohibition itself. Nothing less will do, and there is simply no other alternative for nations espousing liberty and personal freedoms than a continuing and increasingly radical reorientation of policy concerning all drugs and drug issues. Only a timely and confident move in such a direction can avoid future defacto world domination through the mechanisms enabled by U.S. Prohibitionism. The politics of the War on Drugs is a politics of creeping totalitarianism: it will most certainly lead to the end of free societies as we know them.
- Holy Wars — a review of David Wagner's The New Temperance by Peter Webster
- Some of the articles above, and more on the same subject, can be reached via DRCNet Special Features.
- Julian Heicklen: Death to the Druggies
- Strategies to End the Drug War
- Clifford A. Schaffer: Persuasive Strategies
The issue is not legalization or decriminalization because we really do not know if we will ever do those things, or anything like them. The issue is prison. The issue is how many millions of people will have to go to prison before this policy is successful.
- Recent Articles in the Media
A list of essays (with abstracts) from The Nation, National Review, Reason, Atlantic, Dissent, Economist, Consumer Reports, BMJ, JAMA, Lancet, Liberty, New Scientist and others concerning the "War on Drugs" and its consequences.
- DrugSense — "access to information and
discussion groups focused on every aspect of drug policy"
- The Drugnews-Digest
- In Search of a Role Model
"Daddy, why can't my role model go on tour to Australia?"
"You mean Lawrence Dallaglio, the England flank forward and rugby union captain?"
"Yes, of course.""Well, my son, I am afraid that he has admitted to something very serious. He has ingested a potentially dangerous drug, which can lead to antisocial behaviour; which has mind-altering effects; which may impair physical and mental performance; which causes long-term damage to health; and which can lead to an addiction that has ruined millions of lives, careers and families — "
"Oh, you mean alcohol? ..."
- MAP Inc. — the web site of the Media Awareness Project: "Moving the Discourse on Drugs from Hysteria to Sanity and Humanity." This site has (among much else):
- The Peter McWilliams ad in Variety newspaper
- Number Jumble Clouds Judgment of Drug War
- Purer, Cheaper Snortable Heroin Floods U.S.
- For Drug Pioneers, their Way Still the High Way — an article about the Shulgins
- Cannabis Campaign: Eight In 10 Britons Favour An Easing Of The Law
- A Cop's Plea To Decriminalize Drugs
- Drugnews Search — a database of articles concerning drugs and the Drug War.
- What the Speakers Said — at the Independent on Sunday conference on cannabis use.
- The Anti-Corruption Foundation, Inc. recognizes the extent to which the trade in illegal drugs has corrupted American society, and calls for Congressional action.
- Ronin Books for Independent Minds
- GROW UP and WAKE UP! This link is now invalid. The document once included the followng:
Legalize possession, and sale to adults by pharmacists. Impose ban on advertising. (Products would come only in plain "Green Wrap" packaging.) Pose high penalties for distribution to minors. Set prices to reflect fair market value based on normal production costs, plus a 100% tax. This would generate funds for rehabilitation, prevention education, and enforcement of unauthorized distribution. This price structure would make substances available for about 2%-10% of current black market prices.
That means that users would, if they ever even heard of the drug in the first place, be able to afford their habit on a minimum wage job. This would dissuade the vast majority from even thinking of selling to minors to support their disease. It would also make it possible for them to live a modestly respectable life without turning to prostitution or street crime to generate the exorbitant sums demanded by the black market.
- Legalize! U.S.A.
Fighting to end the War On Drugs - Arm Yourself Against The "War On Drugs"
Let's be clear: There is not now, nor has there ever been, a "War on Drugs." What there is is a cynical program of political duplicity whose intention is not to prevent drug abuse (which it encourages), but to create a climate of alienation, divisiveness, distrust, fear, hostility and violence within our society. The so called "War on Drugs" is in reality a war of cultural prejudice waged primarily against the young, the poor, the non-white and the socially disaffected to the advantage of the Elected, the Corporate, the Privileged and the Few.
- Independent On Sunday:
Decriminalize Cannabis - Human Rights and the Drug War
- Steve Bolt and Dave Burrows:
Beyond Prohibition - F.E.A.R.
The United States government is exporting its draconian forfeiture laws to other countries as part of the "War on Drugs". Now other countries are cashing in under mutual legal assistance treaties, which allow other countries to forfeit property located in the U.S. — in exchange for letting the U.S. forfeit property located in other countries.
- Marijuana as a medicine
- Dr Lester Grinspoon interviewed by Jana Ray: MARIJUANA - A Medicinal Marvel
Cannabis, or marijuana, has proven medical benefits and few, if any, toxic side-effects. Why, then, has it been a prohibited medicine for over fifty years?
An article from the August-September 1996 issue of Nexus magazine.
- The Peter McWilliams ad in Variety newspaper
This Drug War is a beast that's out of control. The government spends $50 billion a year waging a cruel war on its own citizens, mostly minorities. Every 48 seconds in the United States a life is ruined by a marijuana arrest — 2.9 million since Clinton, a pot smoker, took office.
- Robert Lee Hotz: Chemicals in Pot Cut Severe Pain, Study Says (Los Angeles Times, 1997-10-27)
New animal studies by research groups at UC San Francisco, the University of Michigan and Brown University show that a group of potent chemicals known as cannabinoids, which include the active ingredient in marijuana, relieve several kinds of pain, including the kind of inflammation associated with arthritis, as well as more severe forms of chronic pain.
- MSNBC: Waiting to inhale: hemp for health?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will only recognize a study as good medicine if the marijuana comes from one source: a federally funded pot farm in Mississippi. The catch: access to the crop is controlled by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which reviews all cannabis study proposals. And NIDA, critics say, has traditionally resisted sharing its stash with scientists whose results might clash with its own agenda — the war on drugs.
- Journey for Justice
- S.F. Club's Style Rankles Medical Pot Advocates
- Oregon Cannabis Tax Act
- Virginia I. Postrel: Reefer Madness
Why the Clinton administration is terrified by medical marijuana.For drug warriors, Propositions 215 and 200 are terrifying because these laws recognize that marijuana is not especially dangerous. "We have a problem," said Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala at the Clinton administration's anti-initiative press conference. "Increasing numbers of Americans believe that marijuana is not harmful."
Oh, really? Now where could they have got that idea?
- ABCNEWS: Shopping Holland's Open Drug Policy
After 20 years of the open policy, Dutch statistics* show that Holland has no more people using marijuana than other countries that enforce stricter laws, and that the number of people addicted to hard drugs is generally much lower. Health Minister Els Borst says marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco and allowing its open use keeps people from moving on to more dangerous hard drugs.
*The statistics:
The number of heroin and cocaine addicts in the Netherlands has dropped by one third since the introduction of the open policy, to 1.6 per 1,000 people. The ratio of hard drug addicts is twice as high in other European countries and six times as great in the United States.
- War on Drugs
It is possible that this Official policy on drugs does not reflect the views of most Americans. It is possible that our government is not representing the Nation's best interest. The purpose of this page is to provide links to a diverse assortment of information on various controlled substances. There is no debate unless both sides have an equal opportunity to present their views.
- Roots of Drug Prohibition
- Shadow of the Swastika — "The Real Reason the Government won't Debate
Medical Cannabis and Industrial Hemp Relegalization"
- Owsley Stanley has a number of interesting essays on his web site, including:
- On Psychedelics
- The True Reason for Drug Prohibition
- A Crime against Nature
- WIN THE WAR WITH NO MORE CASUALTIES
![[HANFPARADE 97]](hanfpar.gif)
Mit Hanf in die Zukunft (Into the Future with Hemp)- Hempseed.com
We believe that Cannabis Hemp is a valuable natural resource that can compete with cotton, flax, soybean, timber and petrochemicals as a basic raw material for industry.
- Tom's Cannabis Information Pages
- USA Hemp Museum — with information about the case of Richard M. Davis, arrested in 1997 by the State of Arizona while exhibiting his Traveling Hemp Museum, "which he has set
up many times in strategic locations to educate the public about the history and uses of cannabis and hemp."
- Indoctrination & Propaganda vs. Education
- Waking Up From the Trance of Social and Scientific Orthodox Propaganda
- Dope Fiends
In a world torn by by the entrenchment of sectarianism, rapid change, and uncertainty about our collective future Drugs represent the externalization of our darkest fears of chaos. We see the specters of lawlessness, anarchy, and disorder fueled by Drugs. We think that if only we could wipe out Drugs we would be saved. This a naive and dangerous notion.
- Propaganda
- Suppression of Dissent, Misconduct and Whistleblowing
- Dark Alliance: The Story behind the Crack Explosion
Stories by Gary Webb, San Jose Mercury News Staff Writer.
For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, a Mercury News investigation has found.
- Update June 1997: What the Gary Webb Corrections Mean
- Epilog: Dark Alliance
- Cocaine Import Agency
This web site is a valuable source of information concerning the "war on drugs" as a strategy of "disciplinary social control", with particular attention to the involvement of the CIA in the importing of cocaine and its distribution in urban America. It links to: - The Contras, Cocaine,and Covert Operations
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 2 - Exposing the Drug Warriors
The U.S. "war on drugs" is a massive hoax that benefits only law enforcement and penal bureaucracies while doing nothing to help the very real drug problem in America's deteriorating inner cities. The corporate mass media play right into the hands of corrupt officials and politicians by sensationalizing the drug problem while encouraging an oversimplistic pseudo-debate on the complex material issues at stake.
- CIADRUGS Rodney Stich's CIA web site
The author of this web site had first discovered this CIA drug trafficking while he was an airline captain flying out of Japan and out of Lebanon in the early 1950s. During pilot-to-pilot discussions, these pilots nonchalantly revealed to the author the drugs they were hauling for CIA-related operations. This drug-smuggling practice was later revealed when the author became friends with, and a confidant to, many former CIA and other deep-cover operatives.
- Border Patrol, DEA tell two tales about drug bust
This link to the Express News (Texas?) web site is no longer valid. The article contained this:
A man allegedly caught red-handed with more than a ton of cocaine worth an estimated $83 million walked away without being charged with a crime ...
- The Phony War on Drugs, Chapter XX from
Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin's George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography.
Esequiel Hernandez, Jr.,
victim of the Drug War. - Drug Policy Forum of Texas includes:
- War On Drugs links at Paranoia's Drug Information Server.
- Cures Not Wars
- The Proemium of Jonathan Ott's Pharmacotheon. (Mirror site).
- Private Prisons
Although private prisons have failed to save much money for taxpayers, they generate enormous profits for the companies that own and operate them. Corrections Corporation ranks among the top five performing companies on the New York Stock Exchange over the past three years. ... By carefully selecting the most lucrative prison contracts, slashing labor costs and sticking taxpayers with the bill for expenses like prisoner escapes, C.C.A. has richly confirmed the title of a recent stock analysis by PaineWebber: "Crime pays."
- DRCNET Online Library of Drug Policy
"World's largest online drug policy library."
- A Guided Tour of the War on Drugs
by the Drug Reform Coordination Network. - The Schaffer Library of Drug Policy has links to Basic Facts About the War on Drugs and other interesting material.
- DRCNET's archive of Week Online and Rapid Response Bulletins
- Office of National Drug Control Policy — a source of statistics.
- Observatoire Géopolitique des Drogues in English and in French. Has a link to the Annual Report (in three languages), which has official reports on the drug status of various national states.
- Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs:
International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1996
A wealth of information about drug smuggling and money laundering, brought to us courtesy of the U.S. Department of State. (Link anonymized. For faster loading use the non-anonymized link.) - Nick Gillespie: Dazed and Confusing: Politicians live by different drug laws..
In 1994 ... federal, state, and local police made about one million arrests for drug possession, with marijuana busts accounting for close to half that total. According to the Lindesmith Center, a drug-policy think tank, taxpayers shell out between $20 billion and $30 billion annually on a war that the government admits it is losing.
- Authorities Slam Marijuana Trading Cards
- The web site of Portland NORML has much interesting material.
NORML is not 'pro-marijuana,' as the mass media and government sometimes put it. Please understand that reform proponents and marijuana consumers are no more interested in promoting marijuana use than people who enjoy an occasional beer are in promoting alcohol use.
- New group seeks amnesty for common criminals
- Jerianne Thompson: Why fight a war we can't win?
- For articles concerning the "War on Drugs", the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Waco Massacre and TWA Flight 800 see: IAN GODDARD'S ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN JOURNAL
- Harry Browne's letter to the National Review about the "War on Drugs".
- Marc Aurel's web site is interesting, with a page of drug links and why you should avoid France. But things are improving ...
- France Will Allow Certain Medical Use Of Marijuana
- New Age Patriot
- How you can help legalise cannabis
- Drug Wars — Financing the Far Right with Narcotics
Following the example set by the Reagan administration's funding of the contras. Well, if drugs weren't illegal there'd be little profit in drug dealing, and neither anti- nor pro-government groups could use this as a source of funding. - Castling - the novel
- CSP-Sociology 10: The War on Drugs — Related Information
Many links. - European Cities on Drug Policy
Harm Reduction - a policy that copes with reality - James Dawson's Freedom Page attempts to provide links to all cannabis and hemp related pages on the Internet (good luck James!).
- Do It Now aims "to create and disseminate
accurate, creative, and realistic information on drugs, alcohol, sexuality,
and other behavioral health topics." Perhaps unnecessarily negative and not entirely accurate concerning the psychedelics, but (if you read closely) it's not "Just Say No."
- The Publishers Group Web Site
A web site for "Parents, Teachers, Students, DARE Officers, Researchers and others" which advocates maintenance of the criminal status of drug usage. Particularly interesting are the following documents:- The CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE ACT
- Federal Trafficking Penalties - Marijuana
- Federal Trafficking Penalties - Other Drugs
- NNICC: The Supply of Illicit Drugs to the United States
- OSAP: What You Can Do About Drug Use In America
- DEA: Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization
- "There Are No Compelling Medical Reasons to Prescribe Marijuana or Heroin to Sick People."
- "Violent crime is also a major problem in the Netherlands. A 1992 study of crime victims in twenty mostly European countries ranks the Netherlands as the number one country in Europe for assaults and threats."
- "Taxes would likely push the cost of the product up. Taxing the drugs would make them more expensive at the checkout counter. "
- "There was also no guarantee ... that criminal justice costs would decline if drugs were legalized. It is possible that law enforcement would be additionally burdened with addressing violations of traffic and family violence laws if more people had access to drugs"
Fortunately the falsehoods, distortions and absurd claims are all collected here for convenient study and rebuttal. - The CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE ACT
Details here.
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