Drug War Chronicle, Issue #518 -- 1/11/08
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/psmith
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518
A Publication of Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
David Borden, Executive Director,
http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/borden
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"
Enough is Enough: Petition to Stop the Reckless Drug Raids
http://stopthedrugwar.org/raidpetition
Students: Intern at DRCNet to help stop the drug war now!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/drcnet_intern****ps_to_stop_the_drug_war
Table of Contents:
1. FEATURE: INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO STOP DRUG EXECUTIONS
GEARING UP
Some 32 countries have laws on their books allowing for the
death penalty for drug offenses. A new re****t details the
situation and lays the groundwork for a campaign to stop it.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/international_death_penalty_drugs_campaign
2. DRUG WAR CHRONICLE BOOK REVIEW: "DRUGS AND JUSTICE: SEEKING A
CONSISTENT, COHERENT, COMPREHENSIVE VIEW," BY MARGARET BATTIN,
ET AL. (2008, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 279 PP., $21.95 PB)
We review "Drugs and Justice: Seeking a Consistent, Coherent,
and Comprehensive View" and find it a valuable, thoughtful, and
more accessible than you might think contribution to the
literature.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/book_review_drugs_justice_margaret_battin
3. LAW ENFORCEMENT: OHIO SWAT TEAM KILLS WOMAN, WOUNDS TODDLER
IN DRUG RAID
An Ohio SWAT shot and killed a young black mother and wounded
the toddler she was holding in her arms during a routine drug
raid last Friday. An angry community wants some answers and some
accountability.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/lima_ohio_swat_team_kills_young_mother
4. LATIN AMERICA: DRUG GANG BATTLES COPS, SOLDIERS IN MEXICAN
BORDER TOWN
The new year has brought more drug war violence to the Mexican
border, as drug gunmen battled cops and soldiers in a bloody
confrontation in Rio Bravo, across the river from McAllen,
Texas.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/mexico_rio_bravo_drug_gang_battles_cops_soldiers
5. PAIN MEDICINE: ADVOCACY GROUP TO CHALLENGE CONTROLLED
SUBSTANCES ACT IN LAWSUIT AIMED AT PROTECTING PHYSICIANS,
PATIENTS
The arrest and prosecution of a Kansas pain management physician
and his nurse wife have prompted a leading pain advocacy group
to file a lawsuit challenging the application of the Controlled
Substance Act when it comes to doctors and patients.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/stephan_schneider_pain_group_lawsuit_controlled_substances_act
6. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
There's some funny accounting in some Mississippi anti-drug task
forces, there's a bunch of dope missing from the Boston police
evidence room, and crooked cops are headed for prison in
Chicago, Nashville, and New Haven.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/police_drug_corruption
7. APPEAL: DRCNET MADE AMAZING PROGRESS IN 2007 AND WE NEED YOUR
HELP FOR 2008
An outline of DRCNet's plans and recent accomplishments and an
appeal for your sup****t to make it all happen.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/drcnets_amazing_progress_in_2007
8. WEEKLY: BLOGGING @[EMAIL PROTECTED]
THE SPEAKEASY
"The Truth About Driving When You're High on Marijuana," "The
Drug War is a Training Camp for Corrupt Cops," "Police Who Steal
>From Drug Suspects Are Charged With Theft of "Government"
Property," "Ecstasy Laced With Meth is Bad, But it's Not My
Fault," "SWAT Team Shoots Baby, Kills Mom in Drug Raid Gone
Wrong," "Traffickers Are Hiring Flat-chested Women to Smuggle
Drugs in Their Bras," "Alert: A SWAT Team Shot a Mother and
Child Last Week -- Take Action Now to Stop the Madness!," "A
Column That Deserves a Mention -- AJC's Cynthia Tucker Compares
the Drug War with Prohibition," "Barack Obama's Criminal Justice
and Drug Policy Record," "Good Guys, Bad Guys: Bills Filed to
Improve or Worsen Crack Cocaine Sentencing."
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/blogging_at_the_speakeasy
9. STUDENTS: INTERN AT DRCNET AND HELP STOP THE DRUG WAR!
Apply for an intern****p at DRCNet for this fall (or spring), and
you could spend the semester fighting the good fight!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/drcnet_intern****ps_to_stop_the_drug_war
10. PSYCHEDELICS: NEBRASKA MOVES TO BAN SALVIA DIVINORUM
The Nebraska attorney general and at least one legislator want
to protect Cornhusker youth from salvia divinorum by sending
them to prison for five years if they get caught with it.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/nebraska_attorney_general_seeks_to_ban_salvia_divinorum
11. MARIJUANA: VERMONT GOVERNOR OPEN TO DISCUSSING
DECRIMINALIZATION, HE SAYS
Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas says he is willing to discuss marijuana
decriminalization. He is responding to a proposal from a key
Democratic legislator, and he's taking a much softer stance than
he did just a couple of months ago.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/vermont_governor_jim_douglas_will_discuss_marijuana_decriminalization
12. LAW ENFORCEMENT: DALLAS POLICE TO ACCEPT RECRUITS WITH PAST
DRUG USE
The Dallas police department will now hire applicants who admit
to past hard drug use -- but only if was more than 10 years, the
applicant was under 21, he didn't shoot up, and he only did it
once.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/dallas_police_hire_past_drug_users
13. LAW ENFORCEMENT: DEA TO HIRE 200 NEW AGENTS
Thanks to the budget bill passed by Congress last month, DEA
will be able to end a hiring freeze and sign up 200 more Special
Agents.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/DEA_will_hire_200_agents
14. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of
years past.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/drug_war_history
15. FEEDBACK: DO YOU READ DRUG WAR CHRONICLE?
Do you read Drug War Chronicle? If so, we need your feedback to
evaluate our work and make the case for Drug War Chronicle to
funders. We need donations too.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/do_you_read_drug_war_chronicle
16. JOB OP****TUNITY: GRAPHIC DESIGNER, MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT
The Marijuana Policy Project is seeking a Graphic Designer for
its Wa****ngton, DC headquarters.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/mpp_graphic_designer_position
17. WEBMASTERS: HELP THE MOVEMENT BY RUNNING DRCNET SYNDICATION
FEEDS ON YOUR WEB SITE!
Sup****t the cause by featuring automatically-updating Drug War
Chronicle and other DRCNet content links on your web site!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/drug_policy_content_syndication_feeds_now_available
18. RESOURCE: DRCNET WEB SITE OFFERS WIDE ARRAY OF RSS FEEDS FOR
YOUR READER
A new way for you to receive DRCNet articles -- Drug War
Chronicle and more -- is now available.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/drug_policy_RSS_feeds_now_available
19. RESOURCE: REFORMER'S CALENDAR ACCESSIBLE THROUGH DRCNET WEB
SITE
Visit our new web site each day to see a running countdown to
the events coming up the soonest, and more.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/drug_reform_calendar
(Not subscribed? Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org
to sign up
today!)
================
1. Feature: International Campaign to Stop Drug Executions
Gearing Up
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/518/international_death_penalty_drugs_campaign
The notices generally appear as brief blips on the news wires,
or perhaps as one-paragraph summaries in the international
sections of newspapers: "Iran Hangs Three for Heroin Smuggling,"
"Vietnam Sentences 12 to Death for Drugs," "Malaysia to Execute
Man For Five Pounds of Cannabis." The notices may be brief, but
there is a steady drumbeat of them. In just the past week came
news that Iran had handed over the body of a Pakistani man
executed for drug trafficking and that Malaysia had sentenced a
bill collector to death for drug trafficking.
Despite the steadily rising toll, the use of the death penalty
as a tool in the war on drugs rarely receives much attention,
let alone sustained analysis. But that could be beginning to
change as harm reduction and human rights organizations gear up
to put the state-sanctioned killing of drug offenders in the
international spotlight. The opening volley in that effort took
place last month, when the International Harm Reduction
Association (http://www.ihra.net)
released a re****t on the use
of the death penalty for drug offenses that both details the
extent of the problem and qualifies it as a violation of
international human rights law.
The re****t, The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: A Violation of
International Human Rights Law
(http://www.ihra.net/uploads/downloads/NewsItems/DeathPenaltyforDrugOffences.pdf),
authored by IHRA analyst Rick Lines, finds that some 32
countries have drug offense death penalty provisions on their
books, mostly in North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. While
the death penalty is typically reserved for drug sales,
trafficking, or manufacture, that is not always the case, and in
some countries, mere possession can warrant a death sentence.
The number of people executed for drug offenses easily runs into
the hundreds, perhaps even more, each year. In the last month,
Vietnam alone has sentenced more than 40 people to death for
drug offenses, while from Iran comes a steady drumbeat of
notices from the state news agency that another trafficker or
two or three has been hanged. China has been known to hold mass
public executions of drug offenders, while in Singa****e, dozens
of drug offenders face the executioner each year.
Still, the exact number of executions is unknowable. That's
because countries either do not provide details on the number of
executions or do not provide breakdowns of why people were
executed.
"Because some countries -- China, for instance -- do not release
details of the number of executions they carry out each year, it
is impossible to arrive at an accurate yearly total of drug war
executions," said Lines. "While we can't arrive at an accurate
number, suffice it to say that in some countries, as detailed in
the re****t, drug offenders constitute a significant percentage
of all executions each year, so this is a major issue in some
countries."
Those killings violate international human rights law, the
re****t argues. While international law does not ban capital
punishment, it does limit it in significant ways. The re****t
notes that the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights says the death penalty may be applied only for the "most
serious crimes." Both the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN
Special Rap****teur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary
Executions have found that drug offenses do not constitute "most
serious crimes," which makes executing drug offenders a
violation of international law.
"Capital punishment for drug offences is but one illustration of
how human rights have been sacrificed in the name of the 'war on
drugs,'" said Professor Gerry Stimson, the IHRA's executive
director. "Unfortunately, the death penalty is not the only
example of such abuses worldwide. Repressive law enforcement
practices, the denial of health services to drug users and the
spread of HIV infection among people who inject drugs, due to
lack of access to harm reduction programs, are far too common in
many countries across the globe."
While the IHRA is working all these issues, it is now preparing
to bring the death penalty issue to the forefront as part of a
broader campaign to tie harm reduction and human rights
together. "This re****t is the first research re****t from our new
HR2 -- harm reduction and human rights -- program, and one of
our main emphases in this new program is research and advocacy
on human rights issues related to drug policy and human rights
abuses against people who use drugs," said Lines. "The death
penalty is an obvious issue in that regard, and an im****tant one
to highlight with our first publication. This is part of a
broader campaign, and we will be using the research in various
ways to highlight the issue at the international level in 2008."
The emerging campaign against the death penalty for drug
offenders is part of a broader effort to bring more attention to
human rights abuses against people involved with drugs, said
Lines. "Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have
been very sup****tive of our work on this issue and have provided
im****tant advice and information along the way," he said. "This
is an im****tant link for us. We hope the issue of the death
penalty for drugs is one that might be used to raise the issue
of human rights abuses and drug policy more generally within the
mainstream human rights movement."
IHRA will be working with human rights groups as well as its
international network of regional harm reduction groups to put
the issue in the spotlight this year. In the US, that means
groups like the Harm Reduction Coalition
(http://www.harmreduction.org)
will be joining the fight.
"Our general feeling is that the more repressive the legal
environment, the less room for implementing harm reduction
measures around HIV prevention, overdose prevention, and related
issues," said Daniel Raymond, the coalition's policy director,
"We see a direct correlation in places like Thailand," he said.
The Harm Reduction Coalition has already been working the issue
to a limited degree and plans to do more, Raymond said. "We've
done a little work around China and its tendency to celebrate
the international day against drugs by executing people, and
we've been involved in the discussions between the IHRA and the
regional harm reduction networks on this," he said. "We will be
involved again as this campaign begins to gear up. We're very
interested in pressure to bear and in bringing the harm
reduction community in the US into this issue."
Lines said it is time to act. "As I did the research for this
re****t, I was surprised how little attention this issue has
received, despite the fact that executions for drug offenses
clearly violate international law. There was much less
literature on the topic than I assumed there would be when I
started," he noted. "I was also surprised to see that while the
worldwide trend is clearly toward the abolition of the capital
punishment -- the number of countries with the death penalty has
steadily decreased over the past 20 years -- at the same time,
the number of countries with laws allowing the death penalty for
drugs has increased," Lines continued. "That's completely
opposite to the general trend away from capital punishment. I
think this is an issue where we can almost empirically measure
the negative effects of the war on drugs on human rights."
The campaign against the death penalty for drug offenses got a
boost last month when the UN General Assembly called for a
moratorium on the death penalty
(http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/ga10678.doc.htm)
for all
offenses. Now, the IHRA, its regional network, and mainstream
human rights organizations are ready to bring on the pressure.
"We will begin to initiate more direct lobbying and campaigning
this year," Lines promised. "I can't go into any more detail at
the moment, but you have not heard the last from us on this
issue."
================
later
bliss -- C O C O A Powered... (at california dot com)
--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco
"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cocoa that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.
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