Maptalk-Digest Sunday, December 20 1998 Volume 98 : Number 499
PUB LTE: Down With Dare (CO)
From: (A H Clements)
New additions to the CEDRO website [fwd]
From: Richard Lake <>
CT: Editorial: It's the drugs, Stupid: At Long Lane, they see no evil...
From: "Tom VonDeck" <>
CT: Op-Ed: On dignity, human rights, and misguided critics of methadone tr
From: "Tom VonDeck" <>
PUB - US News & World Report
From: Paul Wolf <>
NY Times has an on-line forum about Medical Marijuana
From: Paul Wolf <>
Is Barr a Bircher?
From:
Bert Lahr has been in the jungle...
From: Peter Webster <>
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Subj: PUB LTE: Down With Dare (CO)
From: (A H Clements)
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 14:13:57 -0500
Newshawk: (Colo. Hemp Init. Project)
Pubdate: Sat, 19 Dec 1998
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Contact:
Website: http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Author: Dennis Duckett/Nederland
DOWN WITH DARE
Thanks for your DARE article (Wayne's Word, Dec. 3). Thanks to Police Chief
Beckner and Sheriff Epp for putting DARE out of its misery, and ours.
Upon reading your article, my son, who is a high school senior, commented,
perhaps with a little pride, that he was the only one in his class who
doesn't use drugs.
We did not allow the school to indoctrinate him with the DARE curriculum.
Instead, he spent his time in voluntary community service working with
kindergartners and first graders which he completely enjoyed.
As a, now, drug-free parent, and aging, very experienced drug using member
of my culture, my view on drugs and what I conveyed to him was that my
experience shows "pot" to have a distracting influence on our normal, daily
existence, (i.e. laboring and consuming for a global corporate economy). For
him this manifests in successfully graduating from high school.
I asked him to be aware of this, and observe it in school life. I never
suggested that "pot" is bad or good. I did tell him that heroin and cocaine
are addictive, and drugs like LSD, psilocybin, mescaline and peyote have
special qualities that can open one's mind to dimensions of awareness most
people don't normally experience. I provided him with my insights and
information on drugs and drug experiences.
As you said-if we teach our kids math and reading they use it. If we teach
drugs they use it. If we teach sex, (you left that one out), they use it.
If, instead, we allow them the freedom to "learn" about all these things; if
they could become aware of their relationship to others, to their
environment, to their world, and how all these things effect those
relationships, they might, perhaps, create and new and different, better
world, of which they might feel a part. Perhaps drug use in our society
might become less narcissistic and more practical, more sacred in its
nature. Perhaps drug "abuse" might end.
Drugs have been used in every culture the world has seen. Drug use is
intrinsic to society.
It will not be controlled, or stopped.
The drug war is a lie.
- ---
Checked-by: Don Beck
Ashley H Clements
1416 Brookvalley lane Atlanta, GA 30324
(404) 636-6426
www.november.org www.mapinc.org
------------------------------
Subj: New additions to the CEDRO website [fwd]
From: Richard Lake <>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 15:34:38 -0500
New additions to the website of the Centre for Drug Research (CEDRO),
University of Amsterdam:
Abraham, Manja D., Peter D.A. Cohen, Roelf-Jan van Til, & Marieke P.S.
Langemeijer (1998), Licit and illicit drug use in Amsterdam III.
Developments in drug use 1987 - 1997. Amsterdam: CEDRO. (PDF file, 473 Kb)
<http://www.frw.uva.nl/cedro/library/prvasd97.pdf>
Abraham, Manja D. (1998), Drug use and lifestyle; Behind the superficiality
of drug use prevalence rates. Presentation held at the 9th Annual
Conference on Drug Use and Drug Policy, Palma de Mallorca, October 2, 1998.
Amsterdam: CEDRO.
<http://www.frw.uva.nl/cedro/library/palma.html>
Cohen, Peter (1998), Shifting the main purposes of drug control: From
suppression to regulation of use. Paper presented at the
Euro-Ibero-American Seminar, 8-9 October 1998, Palácia da Bolsa, Porto,
Portugal. Amsterdam: CEDRO.
<http://www.frw.uva.nl/cedro/library/peter/oporto.html>
Cohen, Peter, & Arjan Sas (1998), Cannabis use in Amsterdam. Patterns of
consumption among 216 experienced cannabis users. Amsterdam: CEDRO. (PDF
file, 741 Kb)
<http://www.frw.uva.nl/cedro/cannabis/canasd.pdf>
Sas, Arjan (1998), Science on the Internet. The pros and cons of publishing
on the world wide web and the possibilities of monitoring information.
Presentation held at the 10th ELISAD conference, Paris, France, December 4,
1998. Amsterdam: CEDRO.
<http://www.frw.uva.nl/cedro/library/arjan/elisad.html>
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message was issued on CEDRO's electronic mailing list. To join this
low volume read-only list, send e-mail to <> and in the
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message to the same address saying "unsubscribe CEDRO".
CEDRO - Centre for Drug Research, University of Amsterdam
http://www.frw.uva.nl/cedro/
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Subj: CT: Editorial: It's the drugs, Stupid: At Long Lane, they see no evil...
From: "Tom VonDeck" <>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 13:07:56 PST
Source: Journal Inquirer
Contact:
Website: http://www.journalinquirer.com
Newshawk: Tom Von Deck
Date: Saturday, December 19th, 1998
It's the drugs, Stupid: At Lon Lane, they see no evil, hear no evil
From the Day of New London
The state's child acvocate, Linda Pearce Prestley, is right to rip the
cover off the conditions teen-agers endure at Long Lane School, the
state's facility for juvenile delinquents.
The institution is utterly medieval. Chaining kids to beds? No
sprinkler system? Has anyone in power contemplated what would happen to
these children if there were a fire?
Prestley, who grew up in Groton, does a service in decrying those
conditions at the school. Many state politicians are publicly agreeing
with her, but don't let them fool you. Those in power have long known
about the appalling conditions at Long Lane for years. Gov. John G.
Rowland got a tour of the facilitry early in his first term. Any number
of legislators have also gotten tours.
So why hasn't anything been done?
Recently, Prestley requested a tour of Long Lane in response to the
suicide of one 15-year-old and subsequent suicide attempts of other
teens incarcerated there. Key to improving conditions, Prestley said,
is an upgrade of mental health services.
She's right. The mental-health services for juveniles could be better
at Long Lane. Practically everything could be better at Long Lane.
But let's get specific.
The vast majority of the juvenile delinquents at Long Lane ere sent
there because they were using drugs, dealing in drugs, or selling drugs.
Many also had alcohol problems.
State officials say 70 percent of male inmates and 85 percent of the
female inmates have a history of drug or alcohol abuse. A University of
Connecticut study estimated that at least 52 percent of the teens in
Long Lane needed drug treatment.
So does Long Lane deal effecticely with the kids' drug involvement?
Nope. The institution has no in-house drug-treatment program.
This, despite the pervasive and proven link in medical literature going
back to 1830 between abuse of alcohol and drugs and suicide attemps.
Given that suicide at Long Lane has landed the facility in the news, the
lack of drug treatment at Long Lane is quite incredible.
So does Long Lane enroll kids in outside drug treatment? Only a handful
of teens get such help, in comparison to the number experiencing drug
problems.
Long Lane used to have a cottage where drug treatment of youth could
take place. But it was funded with federal dollars, and when the money
ran out, the program stopped.
Spokesman John Wiltse, of the state Department of Children and Families,
says two of the staff at Long Lane are clinical substance-abuse
counselors. And they will be able to supervise counseling at the
institution once other staff members are trained to be substance-abuse
supervisors. Wiltse says the goal is to have one certified counselor
for each eight inmates with problems. But it would likely take two to
three years to certify the staff members.
So what happens in the meantime?
The youthful inmates with intensive drug problems are referred to
residential facilities outside Long Lane, but that occurs only if HMO's
approve the treatment, Wiltse says. Currently, some 48 inmates out of a
population of 230 are in such programs.
To fail to address drug problems when more then three-quarters of the
inmate population is diagnosed with those issues is bad policy. There's
no other word for it. Even a neophyte with a modicum of common sense
could see that DCF is failing to prescribe a treatment that will deal
with the problem. By doing so, it is ignoring one to the root causes of
these young people's anti-social behavior.
According to Prestley, Long Lane didn't even have Alcoholics Anonymous
meetings or Narcotics Anonymous meetings available to the troubled youth
- - meetings which are absolutely free and often effective.
The determined see-no-evil-hear-no-evil attitude concerning the
substance-abuse problem among teens at Long Lane isn't merely
short-sighted on the part of DCF.
Even treating the kids for depression while ignoring the drug abuse in
their backgrounds would be a waste of money. Ignoring the drug problem
makes it more likely, not less, that many at-risk kids at Long lane will
continue to attempt suicide. And some, sadly, may just succeed.
To paraphrase James Carville, it's the drugs, Stupid.
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
------------------------------
Subj: CT: Op-Ed: On dignity, human rights, and misguided critics of methadone treatm
From: "Tom VonDeck" <>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 13:30:52 PST
Source: Journal Inquirer
Contact:
Website: http://www.journalinquirer.com
Newshawk: Tom Von Deck
Date: Saturday, December 19th, 1998
Author: David C. Lewis, M.D.
On dignity, human rights, and misguided critics of methadone treatment
This past fall, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani launched a
misguided plan to get methadone patients at city-run hospitals off the
drug, saying that methadone treatment merely swaps one drug addiction -
to heroin - for another.
His attack on methadone patients comes within a year of the landmark
National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference in which an expert
panel affirmed the positive outcomes of this approach to treatment and
recommended it's expansion. Barry MCaffrey, director of the Office of
National Drug Policy, swiftly and correctly countered the mayor with a
strong statement in far-reaching support of methadone maintenacne
treatment.
Campaigns decrying maintenance are nothing new. They were the
foundation of state anti-narcotic laws in the decade before the passage
of the Harrison Act (1914) and subsequently of both state and national
laws in the following five decades. Along with the anti-maintenance
mentality came vilification fo the heroin addict, denunciation of
ambulatory treatment, limited access to institutional care, and a
designation of abstinence as the only acceptable goal for treatment.
Several maintenance clinics (mostly dispensing morphine) arose after the
Harrison Act severely restricting physicians from prescribing opiates to
addicts. Some, like a short-lived one in New York City, were hastily
planned and suffered from administrative problems. Others, like the one
in Shreveport, La., were effective and were supported not only by the
medial profession but also by local politicians and law enforcement
officials. But federal authorities at the newly formed Narcotics Bureau
were overzealous and successful in their pursuit of these clinics. The
last one closed in 1923.
Not until the mid-1960's was maintenance successfully reintroduced.
This time, there were two advantages over the clinics of the early
1900's. One was the synthesis of methadone, a maintenance drug which
could be taken orally. The fact that it lasted about 24 hours made the
administration of the drug feasible in outpatient clinics. Second,
amnulatory treatment of addiction had become acceptable.
Although methadone maintenance is no panacea, it is the most widely used
treatment for heroin addiction. Currently there are 115,000 patients in
programs across the nation. It is the most studied of all the treatment
approaches and has been shown to be a cost-effective approach for
reducing heroin use, crime, and the spread of HIV. Many heroin addicts
treated with maintenance drugs have successfully stabilized their lives,
engaged in productive work, and are members of healthey and happy
families.
Where do we go from here? To say "shame" to Giuliani and "cheers" to
McCaffrey promotes political conflict and public interest but misses my
point. Let's start with a crash course in dignity and human rights.
First and foremost, remember that no matter what the headlines say, the
important struggle is not betwen the mayor and drug czar. The major
struggle is beween the heroin addict and heroin addiction. To the
extent that many have found health and stability through maintenance
treatment, we must support their efforts.
Dr. David C. Lewis, a Brown UIniversith professor of medicine and
community healthe, directs the Bron University Center for Alcohol and
Addiction studies. He also is a project director of the new Physician
Leadership on National Drug Policy.
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
------------------------------
Subj: PUB - US News & World Report
From: Paul Wolf <>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 18:04:12 -0500
These three letters appeared in the Dec 21st issue of
US News and World Report:
"Land for Peace in Colombia" [November 23rd] does well to
bring attention to the dire situation in Colombia today.
Legitimizing control of portions of that country by the Rev-
olutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National
Liberation Army (ELN) will not end the hostilities in Colombia.
It is most likely only the beginning of the existing Colombian
government's downfall. While handing them undeserved gifts,
President Andres Pastrana has given these groups a large
portion of the legitimate recognition they desire. He is
giving these "narco-guerillas" the unabated opportunity to
produce the very narcotics that fund their movements. With
this, we anticipate that drug production will triple in the
next year.
Andrew R. Chilcoat
National Defense Council Foundation
******************************************************************
An integral part of President Pastrana's efforts to negotiate
an end to our internal conflict is to modernize the Colombian
armed forces. Under the leadership of the new minister of
defense, Rodrigo Lloreda, we have embarked on reforms to turn
the military into a cadre of professionals whose sole duty is
to protect our democracy. Such a turnaround cannot happen
overnight, but happen it will. The country's goal is recon-
cilliation, not division, surrender, or balkanization of the
country. We are committed to listen and negotiate. Admittedly,
there is a long way to go, and the road will be a rocky one.
We operate under no illusions. We are aware that any bid for
peace, whether in Colombia, Central America, Northern Ireland,
or the Middle East, has its ups and downs. We hope, however,
that journalists covering Colombia will give our efforts a
balanced assessment. The peace process has just begun.
Luis Alberto Moreno
Ambassador of Colombia
******************************************************************
Let's give the "laboratory for peace" in Colombia a chance.
Just as in the Middle East, all sides should listen to the
wise advice of Mahatma Gandhi: There is no road to peace.
Peace is the road.
Paul Wolf
Colombia Support Network
------------------------------
Subj: NY Times has an on-line forum about Medical Marijuana
From: Paul Wolf <>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 21:37:02 -0500
The NY Times has had a drug policy forum for many months, but
they just changed the forum topic from "Operation Casablanca"
to medical marijuana.
If anyone has anything to say about medical marijuana, it would
show the Times that we are listening to them and appreciate the
attention to the issue:
"Will the continuing debate on drug laws lead to a more reasoned
approach to America's drug problem, or is the citizenry convinced
that any loosening of the reins will result in a gallop to social
ruin? November's midterm elections saw four states and the District
of Columbia approve medical marijuana measures--bringing to seven
the number of states that have reexamined and significantly changed
their approach to this controversial substance, despite harsh Federal
criticism. Are the medical marijuana and industrial hemp initiatives
clever diversions designed to change public perception? Drug Czar
Gen. Barry McCaffrey thinks so. What do you think?"
------------------------------
Subj: Is Barr a Bircher?
From:
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1998 09:43:09 -0600 (CST)
Here's a little item on Bob Barr from a recent Washington Post
column that was reprinted in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:VIEWPOINT3/1:VIEWPOINT312
l
From the fringe to the forefront; Impeachment aficionados kept the flame
alive
By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post
Barr earned his conservative stripes by forcing a reluctant House
leadership to vote on a futile bid to repeal the assault weapons ban,
and then led the charge against legalizing homosexual marriages. More
recently, he succeeded in pushing legislation effectively barring a
Washington, D.C., referendum on the medical use of marijuana.
In the past year, Barr has appeared frequently on television and pressed
the case for impeachment in speeches and appearances before conservative
groups, including John Birch Society chapters in Los Angeles and
California and the Council of Conservative Citizens, which promotes the
preservation of the white race and views intermarriage as genocide. Barr
dissociated himself from the CCC only after newspaper inquiries were
made about his appearance.
------------------------------
Subj: Bert Lahr has been in the jungle...
From: Peter Webster <>
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1998 19:02:25 +0000
It appears Bert Lahr has been in the jungle looking for magic mushrooms...
Try the URL
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/life.htm
I'd appreciate notification of any errors, typos, or unsatisfactory images.
Peter Webster
International Journal of Drug Policy http://www.elsevier.nl:80/
subscriptions:
DRCNet Online Library of Drug Policy http://www.druglibrary.org/
The Psychedelic Library
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/
http://www.drugtext.org/psychedelics/
------------------------------
End of Maptalk-Digest V98 #499
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Media Awareness Project /' _ ` _ `\ /'_`)('_`\
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