www.mpp.org   The price of liberty is, always has been, and
always will be blood: the person who is not
willing to die for his liberty has already lost it to
the first scoundrel who is willing to risk dying
to violate that person's liberty. Are you free?
-- Andrew Ford
Cheers Denver!
What are you doing in August?
Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a
species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of
reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and
makes a crime out of things that are not crimes.
A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our
government was founded.
-Abraham Lincoln
On the floor of Congress 1849
Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking
a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica. -- Abraham Lincoln, 1855
Certain segments of the media, certain quarters in academia,
and some frustrated Americans see legalization as an option
that should be discussed. -- US DEA booklet, "Speaking Out Against Legalization" In November of 2005 Denver made history by passing Safer's Marijuana Initiative so.. 
www.safercolorado.org
www.saferchoice.org 
The Colorado Alcohol-Marijuana Equalization Initiative The title as designated and fixed by the Ballot Title Setting Board on
February 15, 2006, is as follows: An amendment to section 18-18-406 (1) of the Colorado revised statutes
making legal the possession of one ounce or less of marihuana for any
person twenty-one years of age or older. The ballot title and submission clause as designated and fixed by the
Ballot Title Setting Board on February 15, 2006, is as follows: Shall there be an amendment to section 18-18-406 (1) of the Colorado
revised statutes making legal the possession of one ounce or less of
marihuana for any person twenty-one years of age or older?   We didn't choose to fight this drug war, it chose us.
Now we have to do whatever it takes to fight this evil
and change this system. No more shattered lives! -- Chris Conrad, author "Shattered Lives"  The Colorado Secretary of State announced yesterday that SAFER's statewide marijuana legalization initiative has qualified for the ballot! The measure, which would eliminate all penalties for possession of up to one ounce of marijuana by adults 21 and older, will appear as Amendment 44 on the November ballot and will be decided by Colorado voters in the November 7th election.
The official count found us to have submitted 130,815 total signatures, which is nearly twice the approximately 68,000 needed -- this is a feat in and of itself! We again thank all the individuals who put their time and hard work into this incredible effort. We hope this payoff will motivate everyone to stay involved and lend a hand in any way they can to make the upcoming campaign a success.
 Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing
because he could only do a little. -- Edmund Burke (1729-1797) 
www.sensiblecolorado.org The effect of drug enforcement has been to lessen
people’s respect for the law because they believe the policy is irrational, because they believe they are being harassed,
and also because we see the dirtiest kind of policing in
the area of drug enforcement.
-- Law Union of Ontario, statement on Canada's drug laws 
not South Dakota. It.s Pakistan
And Med MJ in South Dakota 
www.sodaksafeaccess.org It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of different opinion
-- William Ralph Inge Let's Hope Not 
www.sdmedicalmarijuana.org Legalization and any regulation of cannabis production, distribution and use would likely reduce some of the
adverse consequences of using the criminal law in this area. -- Jean Chretien, when Canada's Minister of Justice, in a 1981 policy paper In Nevada!
Can You Believe This! Legalization - Production & Distribution 
www.regulatemarijuana.org Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with
keener fangs than freedom never endangered. -- Cicero Local Initiatives Include: Eureka Springs Arkansas Initiative http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7047 California Go Figure 
www.sensiblesantabarbara.org/ 
www.sensiblesantacruz.org 
www.sensiblesantamonica.org and Missoula County Montana 
http://www.responsiblecrimepolicy.org/ 
Afganistan. Dog bites pot.
Other Active States Include
www.ardpark.org
www.regulatemarijuanainalaska.org 
www.texansformedicalmarijuana.org 
www.dpfks.org
www.njweedman.com
 http://www.montanacares.org/home/ The only solution to the drugs problem is the
legalisation of all drugs. -- Sergeant Gordon Payne, Southampton Police The Reefer Madness Museum Welcome to the Dark Side of Old Time and its use as a propaganda tool. "He that controls the Past --- Controls the Future"
"He that controls the Present --- Controls the Past"
George Orwell -- 1984
Gallery Jonik        
MARIJUANA THE ASSASSIN:
Marijuana is one of the greatest menaces to American youth today.
What are its effects upon the addict?
"ASSASSIN!'. you exclaim. "lsn't that a pretty strong word for a thing that comes from the Rowers of Indian hemp. a plant originally grown in India ?"
"Assassin" is a strong word, we admit: but did you know that the word actually comes from the Arabic "Hashishin," that is, '.hemp eater.'? The Hashishi were a group to whom a Persian chief, nearly a thousand years ago, gave the drug from Indian hemp in order to make them crazy to kill, for he wanted men who would go to any lengths to turn back the Crusaders. Because these men did such a good job of exterminating thousands of Crusaders, and because they did so under the powerful influence of the drug "hashish," they were called the "hashishi," and the individual a "hashishin.'. Hence our word, "assassin.'
The word "assassin" is none too strong for the thing called in the Orient hashish or hasheesh: in America, marijuana or marihuana; and known in underworld parlance as “loco weed” and "muggles.” Marijuana is a ruthless killer. It kills the person who uses it, and too often it leads him to kill others. In fact the Malayan exclamation of alarm over a man, an elephant, or a tiger, on a killing rampage,-" Amok! Amok!" ("KiIl! Kill!'), -originated in Siam when addicts to hashish went wild in a killing frenzy. We have copied the Malayans somewhat in our expression, "Run amuck.” Marijuana (the Spanish name for the drug) is not used in medicine or by the medical profession. It is used solely for its narcotic effect. The user seems to be floating in space. He sees visions of beautiful gardens, wonderful flowers, towering trees. He believes there is no possibility of pain, trouble, or sorrow. Everything is grand; everything is beautiful. Space means nothing to him. Time seems endless; a minute stretches into days and months, a day into years.
But all these pleasurable sensations last only a little while. The addict soon finds himself unable to walk, and later falls into a drunken stupor and deep sleep. After a few months' addiction his eyelids become red and swollen. His appetite goes. He loses flesh, and soon looks gaunt. His memory begins to fail him; after a while he cannot remember even the most familiar things. Because of the terrible strain marijuana puts on the nervous system, eventually the addict goes insane, completely and hopelessly so.
But somewhere along this path that leads to darkness and night the marijuana addict may suddenly become a murderer. He may commit the crime in order to show his imagined prowess and superiority. He may do it because of fancied enemies and grudges. Turn back to the very first page of this book, and you will find the true story of a twenty-year-old girl killer who testified in court that a few puffs on a marijuana cigarette made it seem all right to kill the owner of an automobile when he resisted a holdup. (The incident there related occurred in New Jersey early in 1938.) That is just a sample of the way marijuana may affect the user. Its course is quite unpredictable, for it affects one person one way; and another quite differently. But the effect is always bad, both for the individual user and for society as a whole. Marijuana is the greatest danger the United States faces today so far as narcotic drugs are concerned.
It is so because of three factors : 1. The marijuana plant (Cannabis indica) can be grown, and is grown, in almost every state in the Union. This is not the case with the plants from which we get cocaine and opium. Practically all cocaine and opium is imported, and most of those drugs used illicitly are smuggled in despite the vigilance of customs officials and narcotic inspectors. But marijuana does not have to run the border gantlet. Brought across the border from Mexico a few years ago, the plants have found root everywhere. They are grown in backyards in Philadelphia, in a vacant lot in Detroit, between rows of corn in Illinois, in a cotton field in Texas and in California gardens. To be sure, both state and federal officials have suddenly awakened to the invasion of this dangerous plant; but it is so widely grown and so easily camouflaged that it is proving a most stubborn thing to cope with.
2. The method by which marijuana is sold is also baffling to law-enforcement officers. It is made up into cigarettes, which are called “reefers," and which look like the ordinary tobacco cigarettes. It is peddled in underworld haunts, in cheap hotels and boarding houses, around schools and colleges, at the usual rate of two cigarettes for a quarter. Because of its innocent-appearing form it escapes detection, and the traffic has grown to huge proportions without any very successful means of combating it being evolved. 3. The marijuana traffic makes its major attack on youth. Those who sell it frequent the neighborhoods of schools. They see a boy or a girl smoking, and they then offer” a cigarette with more kick in it." Many times the marijuana cigarette is given away in order to start the appetite for more. Out of curiosity, many boys and girls take a couple of the "new kind of cigarettes" just to see how they differ from the brand they have been smoking. They soon find that the new cigarette' does have a kick,-- a big kick! It carries them off into an unreal world, and gives them sensations they never before experienced. Inasmuch as the seamy and sordid side of marijuana is not experienced at first, unthinking youth form the habit before they have any realization of the terrifying and tragic potentialities in "reefers." By the time they wake up, it is often too late; the habit has fastened itself securely upon them.
Thus marijuana truly becomes the assassin of youth.
And There Are Other Things   Don't forget - Heroin is a registered brand name from Bayer Labs for Heroic pain relief!
| Mexico To Decriminalize Some Drugs |
Posted by CN Staff on April 29, 2006 at 13:21:33 PT
By Noel Randewich
Source: Reuters
Mexico City -- Possessing marijuana, cocaine and even heroin will no longer be a crime in Mexico if they are in small amounts for personal use under new reforms passed by Congress that quickly drew U.S. criticism. The measure given final passage 53-26 by senators in a late night session on Thursday is aimed at letting police focus on their battle against major drug dealers, and President Vicente Fox is expected to sign it into law.
"This law provides more judicial tools for authorities to fight crime," presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said on Friday. He said the reforms, which were proposed by the government and approved earlier this week by the lower house of Congress, made laws against major traffickers "more severe." The legislation came as a shock to Washington, which counts on Mexico's support in its war against drug smuggling gangs who move massive quantities of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines through Mexico to U.S. consumers. "I would say any law that decriminalizes dangerous drugs is not very helpful," said Judith Bryan, spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. "Drugs are dangerous. We don't think it is the appropriate way to go." She said U.S. officials were still studying the reforms, under which police will not penalize people for possessing up to 5 grams of marijuana, 5 grams of opium, 25 milligrams of heroin or 500 milligrams of cocaine. People caught with larger quantities of drugs will be treated as narcotics dealers and face increased jail terms under the plan. The legal changes will also decriminalize the possession of limited quantities of other drugs, including LSD, hallucinogenic mushrooms, amphetamines and peyote -- a psychotropic cactus found in Mexico's northern deserts. Fox has been seen as a loyal ally of the United States in the war on drugs, but the reforms could create new tensions. A delegation from the U.S. House of Representatives visited Mexico last week and met with senior officials to discuss drug control issues, but was told nothing of the planned legislative changes, said Michelle Gress, a House subcommittee counsel who was part of the visiting team. "We were not informed," she said. HARDENED CRIMINALS Hundreds of people, including many police officers, have been killed in Mexico in the past year as drug cartels battle for control of lucrative smuggling routes into the United States. The violence has raged mostly in northern Mexico but in recent months has spread south to cities like vacation resort Acapulco. Under current law, it is up to local judges and police to decide on a case-by-case basis whether people should be prosecuted for possessing small quantities of drugs, a source at the Senate's health commission told Reuters. "The object of this law is to not put consumers in jail, but rather those who sell and poison," said Sen. Jorge Zermeno of the ruling National Action Party. Hector Michel Camarena, an opposition senator from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, warned that although well intentioned, the law may go too far. "There are serious questions we have to carefully analyze so that through our spirit of fighting drug dealing, we don't end up legalizing," he said. "We have to get rid of the concept of the (drug) consumer." | In the end, legalization of certain substances may be the only way to bring prices down, and doing so may be the only remedy to some of the worst aspects of the drug plague: violence, corruption, and the collapse of the rule of law. -- Jorge Castaneda, Mexican Foreign Minister, quoted in Newsweek, September 6, 1999 Marijuana Use in Past Month among Persons Aged 12 or Older in Colorado, by Substate Region: Percentages, Annual Averages Based on 1999, 2000, and 2001 NSDUHs 
www.drugabusestatistics.samhsa.gov/subStateTABS/CO.htm Freedom is that instant between when someone tells you to do something and when you decide how to respond. -- Jeffery Borenstein Democracy They Like - Not Democracy They Don't Like Demockracy colorado voices
Just say no
By Larry Pozner Denver Last November, Denver voters passed a city ordinance making it legal for a person 21 or older to possess less than 1 ounce of marijuana (or 28 grams) for personal use. Last month, Denver police, ignoring both the expressed will of Denver's citizens and the law of the city and county of Denver, charged David La Goy with possession of less than 1 gram of marijuana. That is less than the amount of sugar in a single packet. The Denver city attorney's office will now marshal its vast resources in hopes of convincing a six-person jury, each taking time from their jobs and kids, that La Goy possessed this pinch of marijuana. La Goy and many others in Denver are being prosecuted under a state law that makes it a petty offense, punishable by a $100 fine, to possess not more than 1 ounce of marijuana. But it is not just the city prosecutors who are seeking to rack up convictions in these cases, it is also the Denver District Attorney's Office that pursues these cases under state law. This prosecution is not only absurd, it is an affront to both common sense and to the notion that law enforcement and our elected leaders are accountable to the citizens who elected them. Denver Police Chief Gerald Whitman's website claims the Denver police work "To Protect and To Serve." But the DPD's continued devotion of its resources to minor marijuana possession cases, in violation of the law enacted by Denver's citizens, neither protects nor serves our community. Apparently the DPD reserves the right to ignore the will of the people it serves. In my book, that isn't service, it is arrogance. As for the "protect" part: La Goy is HIV-positive, disabled, and uses marijuana to decrease the nausea that is the inevitable byproduct of the heavy prescription drugs he takes to battle infections. So I guess the DPD is protecting society by making sure this man needlessly suffers a few extra hours a day while convicted. I certainly feel more protected. Don't you? The law enforcement costs of such prosecutions are high. Each marijuana case will be heard by a judge who will be forced to devote precious time and staff to pre-trial hearings, jury selection and trial. Denver's judges carry overwhelming caseloads, and I daresay most of those cases involve far more serious offenses. Courtroom time devoted to minor marijuana possession cases usurps time that could be better used. The Denver police officer who made this spectacular bust will need to testify. So mark him or her off the streets. No chasing robbers, no responding to a burglary, no real crime- fighting for that officer on that day. The prosecution must prove that this minute quantity of a green leafy substance is indeed marijuana. This will require the testimony of a trained lab analyst drawn from the overworked staff of the Denver Police Department's crime lab. Scratch one lab tech from work on, say, checking DNA in sex assault cases, analyzing evidence in a homicide case, assisting in the prosecution of a methamphetamine lab, or virtually any other lab work that is necessary in real criminal cases. Each marijuana case requires the services of a prosecutor, either a state deputy district attorney in county court or a deputy city attorney in municipal court. Take one prosecutor off of assaults, thefts, DUIs or non-felony sexual assault cases. Yes, indeed. Denver spares no expense in its quest to get the pot-puffers. The prosecution of La Goy is not an isolated event or an aberration. Since Denver voters adopted the law permitting the limited possession of marijuana, Denver police and prosecutors are bringing all their petty marijuana possession cases under the state law. Taking a snapshot, on the same day in the same courtroom that La Goy appeared, there were 10 cases on the docket for possession of under 1 ounce of marijuana. So Denver's scarce law-enforcement assets are regularly squandered on cases that carry a lifelong penalty for a non-crime. I suggest this is not what our state believes is justice. If the state really wants to prosecute such cases, let the state use its resources. Direct our Colorado Bureau of Investigation to do the lab analysis and in-court testimony. Tell our state attorney general's office to prosecute minor marijuana cases. But that is not going to happen because none of these state law enforcement agencies will waste their resources on such inconsequential cases. Apparently Denver will. In a separate series of events related only by common sense and irony, it was recently reported that in spite of rising crime rates, Denver arrests have dropped 35 percent since 1998 and drunken driving arrests are down by 50 percent in the last seven years. In response, Whitman partially blames staff shortages and has called for the hiring of 267 additional officers. According to city figures, hiring 200 new police officers is a $13 million-a-year proposition. Whitman says he has a new plan to fight crime. He is going to prioritize where he puts his officers. The Denver District Attorney's Office already has 69 deputies; they always want more. We should remind District Attorney Mitch Morrissey, Mayor John Hickenlooper and Chief Whitman of how they use their current prosecutors and current officers to investigate, try and convict Denver citizens for an offense that Denver voters abolished. We should remind them of David La Goy's case. When it comes to the continued prosecution of inconsequential possession of marijuana, just say no. Larry Pozner is a trial lawyer handling criminal defense and business litigation cases at Reilly Pozner and Connelly LLP. Q: Are you in favor of legalizing marijuana and hallucinogenic drugs?
A: My personal point of view is irrelevant, since all such legal restrictions are futile and will inevitably wither away. You could as easily ban drugs in a retribalized society as outlaw clocks in a mechanical culture. The young will continue turning on no matter how many of them are turned off into prisons, and such legal restrictions only reflect the cultural aggression and revenge of a dying culture against its successor. -- Marshall McLuhan, interviewed in Playboy | 
Be a part of History, Join the Campaign, VOTE & End Prohibition Again! And why...  
www.sentencingproject.org "Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness. It comes to bring us evil-- only evil-- and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs."
The passage is from an 1887 speech by Roger Q. Mills of Texas. It was quoted more than once during the December, 1914 debate in Congress:
 
www.hrw.org If public trust is the capital foundation upon which police service is built, then we cannot afford to squander it pursuing an archaic interpretation of morality. -- Gil Puder, Vancouver Police Officer, 1998 
www.spr.org
| U.S. Prison Industry: Big Business or Slavery? |
Posted by CN Staff on March 10, 2006 at 07:03:37 PT
By Vicky Pelaez
Source: San Francisco Bay View
USA -- Human rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic – are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold.
They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells. There are over 2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the country. According to California Prison Focus, “No other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens. ” The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25 percent of the world’s prison population but only 5 percent of the world’s people. From less than 300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2 million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was 1 million. Ten years ago, there were only five private prisons in the country with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is expected that by the coming decade, the number will hit 360,000, according to reports. What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners? “The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ work lobby for longer sentences in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself,” says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being “an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps. ” The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. “This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites and mail-order and Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security and padded cells in a large variety of colors. ” According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100 percent of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98 percent of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93 percent of paints and paintbrushes; 92 percent of stove assembly; 46 percent of body armor; 36 percent of home appliances; 30 percent of headphones, microphones and speakers; and 21 percent of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people. Crime Goes Down, Jail Population Goes Up According to reports by human rights organizations, these are the factors that increase the profit potential for those who invest in the prison industry complex: • Jailing persons convicted of non-violent crimes and long prison sentences for possession of microscopic quantities of illegal drugs. Federal law stipulates five years’ imprisonment without possibility of parole for possession of 5 grams of crack or 3.5 ounces of heroin, and 10 years for possession of less than 2 ounces of rock-cocaine or crack. A sentence of 5 years for cocaine powder requires possession of 500 grams – 100 times more than the quantity of rock cocaine for the same sentence. Most of those who use cocaine powder are white, middle-class or rich people, while mostly Blacks and Latinos use rock cocaine. In Texas, a person may be sentenced for up to two years’ imprisonment for possessing 4 ounces of marijuana. In New York, the 1973 Nelson Rockefeller anti-drug law provides for a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years to life for possession of 4 ounces of any illegal drug. • The passage in 13 states of the “three strikes” laws (life in prison after being convicted of three felonies) made it necessary to build 20 new federal prisons. One of the most disturbing cases resulting from this measure was that of a prisoner who for stealing a car and two bicycles received three 25-year sentences. • Longer sentences. • The passage of laws that require minimum sentencing, without regard for circumstances. • A large expansion of work by prisoners, creating profits that motivate the incarceration of more people for longer periods of time. • More punishment of prisoners, so as to lengthen their sentences. History of Prison Labor in the United States Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of “hiring out prisoners” was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else’s land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery – which were almost never proven – and were then “hired out” for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88 percent of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93 percent of hired-out miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972. During the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racial segregation laws were imposed on every state, with legal segregation in schools, housing, marriages and many other aspects of daily life. “Today, a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison industry complex,” comments the Left Business Observer. Who is investing? At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy’s, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generated by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call “highly skilled positions.” At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month. Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq. Oregon state Rep. Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that “there won’t be any transportation costs; we’re offering you competitive prison labor (here).” Private Prisons The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s under the governments of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. but reached its height in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. Clinton’s program for cutting the cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Department’s contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates. Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut, which together control 75 percent. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one. According to Russell Boraas, a private prison administrator in Virginia, “The secret to low operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners.” The CCA has an ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at night watch over 750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get their sentences reduced for “good behavior,” but for any infraction, they get 30 days added – which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost “good behavior time” at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons. Importing and Exporting Inmates Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals. When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits. According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That state’s governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Cuomo in New York and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits. After a law signed by Clinton in 1996 – ending court supervision and decisions – caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering “rent-a-cell” services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner. Statistics Ninety-seven percent of 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of non-violent crimes. It is believed that more than half of the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent of the crimes they are accused of. Of these, the majority are awaiting trial. Two-thirds of the one million state prisoners have committed non-violent offenses. Sixteen percent of the country’s 2 million prisoners suffer from mental illness. | www.cannabisnews.com Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth. -- Will Rogers Why the world needs an international network of activists who use drugs
We are people from around the world who use drugs. We are people who have been marginalized and discriminated against; we have been killed, harmed unnecessarily, put in jail, depicted as evil, and stereotyped as dangerous and disposable . Now it is time to raise our voices as citizens, establish our rights and reclaim the right to be our own spokespersons striving for self-representation and self-empowerment:
To promote a better understanding of the experiences of people who use illegal drugs, and particularly of the destructive impact of current drug policies affecting drug users, as well as our non-using fellow-citizens: this is as an important element in the local, national, regional and international development of these social policies.
To advocate for universal access to all the tools available to reduce the harm that people who use drugs face in their day-to-day lives, including, i) drug treatment, appropriate medical care for substance use , ii) regulated access to the pharmaceutical quality drugs we need ii) availability of safer consumption equipment, including syringes and pipes as well as iii) facilities for their safe disposal, iv) peer outreach and honest up-to-date information about drugs and all of their uses, including v) safe consumption facilities that are necessary for many of us.
To establish our right to evidence-based and objective information about drugs, and how to protect ourselves against the potential negative impacts of drug use through universal access to equitable and comprehensive health and social services, safe, affordable, supportive housing and employment opportunities
To provide support to established local, national, regional, and international networks of people living with HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis and other harm reduction groups, making sure that active drug users are included at every level of decision-making, and specifically that we are able to serve on the boards (of directors) of such organizations and be fairly reimbursed for our expenses, time and skills.
Well aware of the potential challenges of building such a network, we strive for:
Value and respect diversity and recognize each other's different backgrounds, knowledge, skills and capabilities, and cultivate a safe and supportive environment within the network regardless of which drugs we use or how we use them
Maximum inclusion with special focus to those who are disproportionately vulnerable to oppression on the basis of their gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, etc.
to ensure that people who use drugs are not incarcerated and that those who are incarcerated have an equal right to healthy and respectful conditions and treatment, including drug treatment and access to health-promoting supplies such as syringes and condoms and medical treatment or at least equal to that they would receive outside
Ultimately, the most profound need to establish such a network arises from the fact that no group of oppressed people ever attained liberation without the involvement of those directly affected by this oppression. Through collective action, we will fight to change existing local, national, regional and international drug laws and formulate an evidence-based drug policy that respects people's human rights and dignity instead of one fuelled on moralism, stereotypes and lies.
The International Activists who use drugs 30 April 2006, Vancouver Canada www.hardcoreharmreducer.be/ We have the largest prison system in the entire free world. -- Senior Texas Judge Larry Gist, 1998 "Congress should definitely consider decriminalizing possession of marijuana... We should concentrate on prosecuting the rapists and burglars who are a menace to society."
--Dan Quayle (US Representative, March 1977)
"Several generations of high school students have grown up ignoring and disbelieving everything they've heard from government and police about drugs, including information that was factual and valid, because they discovered for themselves that most of what has been taught to them was simply not true."
--Ann Shulgin (PhD, Therapist and Author, Lafayette, CA, at the DPF Conference, November 1996)
"This study indicates that there is little correlation between the use of ganga and crime, except in so far as the possession and cultivation of ganga are technically crimes"
--Jamaican Study (1970)
"Marijuana is not the determining factor in the commission of major crime....The publicity concerning the catastrophic effect of marijuana smoking in New York City, is unfounded"
--The LaGuardia sub-committee of New York (1944)
"Compared to alcohol, which makers people take more risks on the road, marijuana made drivers slow down and drive more carefully.... Cannabis is good for driving skills, as people tend to |
