Drug Traffickers, Terrorists & You

[Oz]

Source: Working Assets By Bill Berkowitz

 

Every day Mary Lucey takes AIDS medications to stay alive. Without medical marijuana she gets so nauseous she can't keep the pills down. Lucey, a veteran activist and Interim AIDS Coordinator for the city of Los Angeles, serves on the board of the L.A. Cannabis Resource Center. When the LACRC was raided by the DEA in October, 2001, Lucey lost her safe, reliable source of medicine.

 

Jim and Roni Bowers and their children, religious missionaries working in South America, were in a plane shot down over Peru on April 20, 2001. It was a U.S. government-coordinated "drug interdiction" that went bad and Roni and her one-year-old daughter Charity were killed. According to the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), "This summary execution of suspected drug smugglers was carried out without benefit of evidence, a trial or any opportunity for the Bowers family to defend" itself. Suspended for a while, drug interdiction flights are expected to resume shortly.

 

Esequiel Hernandez was tending his father's goats 100 yards from his home in Redford, Texas when he was killed in May 1997 by U.S. Marines looking for marijuana smugglers. Hernandez who had never been in trouble with the law, lived in a location sometimes frequented by marijuana smugglers. "His death," says the MPP, "was the inevitable result of a 'War on Drugs' fought with a real war's disregard for human life."

 

These are some of the stories that you won't find at United States Drug Enforcement Administration's Museum & Visitor's Center. Despite the failed drug war, the agency recently announced it was expanding the facility by 1,500 square feet. The first exhibit in the new gallery, timed for 9/11, will be devoted to the "connection" between drugs and terrorism.

 

Beginning September 10 - in time for the one year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - the DEA's Arlington, Va.-based Museum & Visitor's Center will present a new exhibit called "Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists & You." The new show will reflect the Bush Administration's recent anti-drug mantra that the "war on terrorism" is inextricably linked to the "war on drugs." The "use drugs/support terrorism" campaign organized by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP, the office of the "Drug Czar"), was unveiled with a $3.5 million ad buy during this past February's Super Bowl.

 

The Super Bowl ads received a resounding thumbs-down from political columnists, editorial writers, entertainers and citizens across America. Matthew Briggs of the Drug Policy Alliance accused the drug czar's office of "hid[ing] their failed war on drugs behind the war on terrorism. That's bad enough," he added, "but what's truly appalling is that they would stoop to blaming our own children."

 

The DEA Museum's current exhibit is "Illegal Drugs in America: A Modern History" traces the impact of drugs on society from the "opium dens in the mid-1800's to the international drug mafias of today." The exhibit "follows the evolution of the Drug Enforcement Administration to its present-day status…. highlights major trends in illegal drug use as well as milestones and accomplishments that DEA and its predecessor agencies have made."

 

Krissy Oechslin, the assistant director of communications for the Washington, DC-based Marijuana Policy Project, visited the museum last year with a group of students. She says "the exhibit lacked credibility, was bereft of context and provided no opposing points of view." A timeline, running the length of the museum depicts the opium wars of the late nineteenth century, the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980's and marijuana use through the years as part of the same seamless drug problem. There were no references to the growing piles of documentation of the cynical role U.S. agencies have played in the drug trade.

 

Targeting Americans

 

President Richard Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) by merging its predecessor agency, the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) with various law enforcement and intelligence gathering agencies in July 1973. According to the agency's Web site, it is "charged with the responsibility of enforcing the nation's federal drug laws and works closely with local, state, federal and international law enforcement organizations to identify, target and bring to justice the most significant drug traffickers in the world." The DEA currently has more than 9,000 employee with 4,500 agents located in cities throughout the United States and in offices in 50 countries around the world.

 

Here's how the DEA describes "Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists & You":

The exhibit "traces the historic and contemporary connections between global drug trafficking and terrorism. Starting with the horrific events of September 11, 2001 and moving back in time to the ancient Silk Road, this exhibit…will present the visitor with a global and historical overview of this deadly connection. The visitor will have many opportunities to explore the often-symbiotic relationships that exist between terrorist groups and drug trafficking cartels and the personal impact those connections have on the visitor."

"When I saw the press release announcing the new exhibit I felt sick to my stomach," Oechslin said in a telephone interview. "I was disgusted by the use of a drawing of the twisted metal shards of the World Trade Center inside of a wraparound banner advertising the new exhibit."

 

Former Arkansas Senator Asa Hutchinson is President Bush's Director of the Drug Enforcement Administration on August 8, 2001. While raiding medical marijuana clubs has not been his only focus, in his first year as agency director Hutchinson has conducted an assault on several California medical marijuana facilities. The DEA's February 2002 raid on a San Francisco medical marijuana distribution facility was "an outrageous, unfounded attack on an organization that has a long history of working with local police authorities," said Bruce Mirken, MPP's communication director. In an early-June article in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Lori Carter reports that "Despite the DEA's denials that it is targeting marijuana clubs, court records show that last week's federal raid on a Santa Rosa club had been four months in the making."

 

A recent press release from the California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws noted that "Since September 11, when the federal government promised to focus their resources on fighting terrorism, federal agents have raided medical cannabis buyers cooperatives in Los Angeles, Santa Rosa and San Francisco." Steph Sherer, the executive director of Americans for Safe Access, which she describes as "a network of patients, advocates and caregivers who defend patients' access to medical marijuana," told me that "There have been more arrests for medical marijuana cultivation and distribution since September 11, than there have been for any acts of terrorism in California."

 

In response to these raids, in early June Dr. Mitch Katz, director of public health for San Francisco, sent a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, calling for hearings on the DEA's priorities. Katz wrote: "these actions [the San Francisco raids] have resulted in 4,000 persons with chronic illness left without access to critical treatment upon which they rely."

 

Targeting the DEA

 

"The new exhibit appears to be a grotesque desecration of the memories of the people who were killed on September 11," Bruce Mirken, said. "Imagine if Osama bin Laden sent squads of armed men into the U.S., stormed medical clinics, stole confidential patient records and literally took medicine from the sick and dying, how would George W. Bush respond? He'd be promising to hunt these terrorists to the end of the earth. All he's got to do is to look at the DEA. What the DEA is doing in California sure looks like terrorism to me."

 

The Marijuana Policy Project has prepared a Web-only counter-exhibit called "Target America: The DEA and You." Parodying the DEA's language, Mirken told me that it "examines the deadly connection between the 'War on Drugs' and terrorism, the often-symbiotic relationship between drug warriors and terrorist drug cartels and the personal impact those relationships have on the average American." MPP focuses on the victims of the DEA - AIDS patients deprived of medicine, medical marijuana dispensaries raided and shut down, and stories about innocent people killed by the DEA and other "Drug War" agencies. Each of the sections contains photos, graphics and extensive documentation.

 

The DEA's "Traffickers…" exhibit appears to be following the Bush Administration script linking drug use - including marijuana - to terrorism. That's about as accurate a depiction of the "drug wars" as Quinn Martin's late sixties television series "The F.B.I." was about J. Edgar Hoover's agency.

 

In a November 2001, Zogby Poll commissioned by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), pollsters asked: "In light of the tragic events of Sept. 11th and the increased attention to the threat of terrorism, do you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose arresting and jailing nonviolent marijuana smokers?" Three-fifths (61%) of likely voters opposed the arresting and jailing of nonviolent marijuana smokers; one-third (33%) supported arrests and jail time; and 6% are not sure.

 

"The public is waking up to the futility and destructiveness of the so-called war on drugs," Mirken said. "This exhibit's dishonest, hypocritical attempt to hitch the DEA's wagon to the popular effort against terrorism is a sign of how desperate they've become. I wonder how Asa Hutchinson sleeps at night."

 

Resources:

 

For more information about the DEA Museum & Visitor's Center: Phone: (202) 307-3463; Fax: (202) 307-8956; E-Mail: museumstaff@deamuseum.org; Web site: www.deamuseum.org.

 

For more on America's drug wars, see:

 

Marijuana Policy Project - http://www.mpp.org

Drug Policy Alliance - http://www.drugpolicy.org

Cannabis.com - http://www.cannabis.com

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (California) - http://www.canorml.org

Americans for Safe Access - http://www.safeaccessnow.org

Californians for Compassionate Use - http://www.marijuana.org

DrugWar.com - http://www.drugwar.com

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

The American problems they are having with terroists at this time is undeniably a result of their foreign policies. Foriegn policies that we hear very little of, that have to be dug deep for among the plethera of crap "news journalism" that is constantly providing the smoke and mirrors that keeps America shining bright in their own minds.

 

The news agencies around the world are the magicians of the present era. Providing the distractions, and the touches up artistry that paints the red white and blue as something honarable.

 

Foriegn policies like the drug law issue. So many countrys want to drop this sharade and get on with life. To get society back to being freinds, and not an Us and Them mentality that this ridiculous war has created.

 

I'm very good freinds with a member of the Michigan PRA, (Personal Responisibilty Amendment). he goes out in the streets, inspite of his employment of a teacher and councellor at his school, and collects signatures to hand in hoping to over turn their crazy drug laws. In America, if a certain % of the registered voting population signs to overturn a law, it is then put in a refferendum. Inspite of gaining enough signatures, the gov. of course continues to put hurdles infront of them at every turn.

 

When did the concept of democracy turn from representing the people, to controllong the people? Last I checked, that isn't democracy.

 

But what struck me when reading this article was the incident where the missionary lady with her 1 year old daughter was shot and killed by American forces. All in the name of the drug war.

 

The picture of a dove that often accompanies Christian logos, and was on the side of the plane that the trigger happy killer shot down, symbolyses peace, as by the Spirt of God. The assasin that shot this lady down claimed the dove resembled a symbol that a drug cartel down that way used.

 

What the hell has it come to where a country has seized such power, that they can shoot people at will, becuase of a picture on a plane? It's crazy.

 

But what is even crazier, is that the American propaganda machine has turned this incidnet around to blame plain ordinary smokers. My freind that was collecting signatures at that time was accousted by zealots of Christidom, claiming it was him and his like that were to blame!

 

Our goal is to stop the killing. To allow feedom of rights, choice. But the man with the bucks is the man that gets the voice heard.

 

Now they are trying to link terroism with drugs, I just can't imagine where this could end up, if left unchecked. And just how, we penniless smokers are going to battle against this crap is a real concern. I speak with serious activist from America very regularly, and they tell me the link is being pushed from every angle, and worse yet, it is actually being believed! And not just by grandma and grandad, but by some people that ought to know better.

 

America has a very very large input into this country's politics, especially in the area of drugs.. Believe it or not, we have a huge hurdle in this.

 

How are we going to combat it? Who is going to get up and do something? Are we going to trust the gov. to do the sensible thing, and make policies that we know we should have, simply from the good level thinking that prevails in all this? Or is that a joke?

 

I don't have the answers. I wish I did. But we must have well educated, forward thinking people that know how to lobby gov. I for one wouldn't have a clue how to go from where we are, to were we need to be. But I know we have them, they just need supporting.

 

If we think that we can leave all this in tha hands of some stoners in Nimbin, forget it. Anyone can drop out, and get stoned all day, and half their luck. But to actually get real political progress, we need something more. I thought we had a chance in the last election with the HEPM party, but alas, they too have found these obsticles, and have folded. I hope they reserect, but that is a wait and see I'm afraid.

 

We need a picture of a cross section of Australian smokers at large. We need to cut the propaganda apart with plain ordinary truth. The Pusher man, the Addict, the desperate daily search for pot to feed a habit can only be defeated by us providing evidence. Believe me, I have had to stand in court and defend against lies on an occasion. It went on for 18 months. I was faced with a person that had made certain accusations against me, that simply weren't true. not only were they not true, but they had no degreee of truth in them at all.

 

That's a hard thing to contest. The obvious rsespose of a guilty person when presented with a charge, is to deny it. So when a lie is presented to ytou that has no semblence of thruth, and the only refute that comes to mind is outright denial, I looked guilty. The person making these accusations was clever. If theyhad taken a truth and bent it to exagerate it, then I would be able to in court, admit to a degree of knowledge, and aceept a degree of blame. I would also be able to then take the truth of the incident, and give my version of the events.

 

But to be presented with blatent lies, with no truth, I was lost. What could one say, but to deny it, as a guilty man would.

 

Fortunely that all worked out well for me, and I was the winner on the day. but what I wanted to use that for was to show how hard it is to defend against blantant lies. But we have to try.

 

I'm as guilty as the next for leaving such a few people with such a momumental task. I voted for the Help End Marijuana Prohibition party at the last election, and that was about it unfortunately, of my sum total of support.

 

I am of the firm belief that we are going to have to come out of the closet to not even win this war, but to stop us from sliding backwards. Sure we have great encouragement in the way the world is heading with contempory laws in Marijuana. But we in Australia at this time at least have a gov. that thinks the American's are demigods. The attitudes that prevail in America are being intraveniously fed into this country through the veins of John Howard.

 

Apart from him sacking the 2 members of the advisory commitee to the gov. on drug issues that held to harm minimalistaion stradegies, and replacing them with 2 zero tolerance clowns, making the total of 4 out of 4 of the members that presently advise the fedral gov. on drug issues being zero tolerance stalwarts. How stacked is that?

 

It wouldn't take much pressure from America to get our federal Gov. to enact any changes to our drug laws as they please. of course, we in Australia have a system of gov. that allows the states to determine our own criminal laws, don't forget that since the inception of the GST, the money system of this country is bascially now centralised in Canberra. And whoever holds the money, of course holds the power.

 

So what do we do? I wish I had the answer. I wish I had an answer.

 

But the hope I had in HEMP has beeen washed away. Have a read of this quick web page, and see what I mean. http://www.green.net.au/hempvic/about.html.

 

We need some courage. We need some co-ordination. We need to bury our prides, and hero worshipping. Out of the throng of smokers, there must me an answer.

 

I don't want to be the next annexed state of the USA. Our drug laws in this country are a dream to what some states of America put up with. The American's have great influence on our laws, and there is no forseeable end to that. Only an increase is the likely change.

 

Co-operation is the only thing I can think of. Not much I know, but we have to start somewhere. The group at HEMP did something. And we let them down. There's alot of reasons why, and I don't mean to berate anyone, and I'm not injuring myself over this. But we need to learn from our mistakes.

 

Don't forget people.

 

WE SMOKE AND WE VOTE.

 

That's all these clowns in canberra understand. That's our one and only tool that I know of in this war. We need to find a way to use it, and drive it into their political hearts. They wont listen to reason, they wont change anything for us because they realsie they were wrong. Ex President Nixon ( I think), said that if it was proved that marijuana was a cure for cancer, or even could bring back the dea, he would still oppose the legalisation of the drug! This is what we're up against. The only weapon we have is their jobs.

 

Raise up brothers and sisters.

 

rob

[Lindsay]

The only power I can see that we have here is the power of the people. I think we need to start regular rallies and distribute flyers advertising the rallies and shooting down the propaganda spread by our Governments. If we want to be heard we are going to have to get together and make sure we are heard. There is no point talking about it, we have to get out there in a group of people and light joints on the steps of parliment. If we want to stop them arresting us for smoking the good 'ol we have to make them unable to do so. If we make a stand in numbers they can not arrest us all. Such a stand would also draw a lot of publicity which would draw others out to join our fight. We have to prove there is a large group of good people in our society that smoke weed and do not believe doing so is wrong.

 

I personally am willing to accept possession charges to go smoke in public to make a point. If we can all do this in a SENSIBLE and UNVIOLENT manner then we just might get somewhere. Hell I'd get myself arrested for distribution for giving out "Free Australian Grown Non Terrorist Supporting Weed" providing it got enough publicity. The key is while doing this to remain dignified to demonstrate we are good people that just want to be left alone.

 

If we got enough publicity from rallies we could promote a national smoke a joint day or national stand up for your rights day. If the police arrested as many people as they could the courts would be flooded for the next few months with possession charges. The more stress we can put on the court system the harder they are going to feel our pressence. We can all stress the courts by getting arrested. It doesn't sound too good but if enough people did it they are going to get very sick of it and will eventually have to stop arresting people.

 

It needs to go even further though. What good is it if we are allowed to have weed but are not allowed to grow it? We need to stand up for the brave people that break the laws to grow us our weed. The people who really get into a lot of trouple when the shit hits the roof. You and me, the ones who have to put up with the paranoia of the possibility of police knocking on your door at 5am for growing a few plants. Once again we need to work together in numbers. If growers out there dedicated a single crop to producing nothing but quality seed and then distributed them for free for people to grow in their back yards the government would have a hard time justifying arresting so many people for cultivating a simple plant. If each grower produced one crop of seed we would have hundreds of thousands of quality seeds ready to turn into hundreds of thousands of potent marijuana plants.

 

There are things we can do. By thinking there is nothing you can do nothing will ever be done to make a change. We need to start pulling together and standing up for our rites. By getting arrested you are helping our cause. Flood the courts with good people and they will soon realise.

[Brainstorm]

Unfortunately I don't see making public protests and being arrested for possession as a solution to the problem. If we had a large gathering openly smoking in public of course they are going to arrest everyone just so that the powers to be can make a point - this sort of action can only hurt the cause, I believe.

 

I believe that what is needed is valid research on the effects of MJ that can't be disputed by the government spin doctors. The only way we can change the minds of the law makers and the general public is with the truth, not the truth as we see it but carefully researched and proven truths.

 

I believe we should also try to change things in stages, I think that we already have a start with some state governments allowing experimental industrial hemp crops - if successful I am hoping that these crops will soften the public thinking towards hemp in general.

 

The next stage should be to change government and public opion to allow the use of medical mj - if we can get the use of medical mj accepted then I believe that we can eventually get mj accepted for social use - albiet a long way off....

 

just my 0.02

[Tom]

Hi Brainstorm, I agree with what you are saying, the main problem is that the research would need government funding so until we get a government that supports mj such research will not be carried out. But then it wouldn't be needed.

 

One thing I have found out from being involved in organising and participating in protests is that the media always focuses of the "deadbeat" element. Protests are wasted unless there is an imminent election and the major parties are chasing votes.

 

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

What frightened me is that if what HEMP say is true, there is nobody to present all this brainstorming we do to anyone. (sorry BS< no pun intended)

 

Sure the Greens may have deccent policies regarding pot, but there is no one pro active in politics anymore, presenting our case. We dont even exsist to the gov. except as law breakers.

 

 

We get arrested, tried in court, and sentenced, and there is no reason to believe that anything is being done by anyone to stop it at all. I had some airy fairy idea, there was someone politically fighting the good fight. I was wrong.

 

rob

[pipeman]

In reality I just can't see an avenue where it will be legalised.

 

the problems as I see it are:

1. Its not a big enough issue in overall terms

2. It will never be a vote winner for any party. The Greens/Democrats have the left vote anyway, so all they need to do is keep their passive pro mj policies. Being pro-active will only potentially lose votes from those who aren't as enlightened.

3. If you don't deal, and are cautious, there's a relatively low risk of being caught, so the stoner community can live with the laws, and by being an activist you put yourself at the very real risk of being targeted by the police.

 

Its depressing.

[Tom]

One major problem facing smaller parties like the greens is lack of funding, ensuring that the minor parties are under-funded is one of the methods the major parties use to stop the minor parties from becoming competing major parties.

 

Due to this lack of finances, smaller parties like The Greens have to rely on volunteers or the interested groups for most of their research and policy creation and updates. What this basically means is that unless a party has people who are prepared to volunteer their time to pursue these things then it is very hard for the party to do anything about them.

 

If people want a fair government that will change unjust and stupid laws then they need to get involved and help to make these changes, people also need to be more aware of the power of their vote and how to use it.

 

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

While it's true that if we take precautions we are unlikely to be arrested, we shouldn't have to look over our shoulder.

 

I used to live in Brunswick Heads, one of the prettiest places on earth imho. Every day, at least once, my wife, a freind and myself, or any comination of, would wonder out on the breakwalls, and have a smoke and enjoy the scenerey. watch the surfers, the waves, see if anyone was catching a fish...whatever.

 

In more recent times, the place has become uptight, and lighting a joint on the breakwalls is likely to end in causeing trouble. This is just one of the many aspects of life that have been robbed away because of the laws.

 

We shouldn't have to restrict what we do, because we smoke. And the laws that restrict us, change our environment staggeringly. I remember when smoking in the middle pub at Mullumbimby was as normal as drinking a beer, yet again, today you'd wind up in trouble. probably in jail.

 

It changes the way we do things entirely. I have freinds that travel to Amsterdam, and the atmosphere is completely diferent I'm told. It's like living on a diferent planet I think.

 

I reckon it'd be like comparing snakes, and no snakes.

 

If you grow up living in Australia, you crawl around in the bush from a young age. if you are careful, and take enough precautions, you probably wont get bitten by a snake.

 

But travel to new Zeland, where there are no snakes. You walk around still looking for snakes for a week or so as you trudge around the scrub. But when the reality finally sinks in there are no snakes to worry about, you can relax and enjoy the beauty of what's around you with complete abandonment.

 

It changes walking through the bush so completely it is undescribable.

It's another experience completely.

 

Our whole lives are effected by the snakes in the grass, wether we think it's a big risk or not, it changes the way we live and breathe.

 

Another reason the law needs to be challenged is for health reasons. I have smoked and eaten pot for far to many years now to justify it on my health. But I do use it to aid the control of some of my health problems just the same. On top of that, I am forced to use narcotics to control my pain. I am curently using insane quntities of oxycontin. A very powerful drug that has more side effects that pot ever will. Infact, I'll be a bit scarce over the next little while, as I try to reduce the amount I'm using.

 

I don't think that pot will ever replace narcotics as effective pain medication across the board. But in some cases, I am sure it could replace narcotics completely. There are other health issues that can be successfully treated with pot, but are instead being treaded with synthetic dangerous "medications".

 

To most people, the precautions needed to "cover their tracks" makes in untenable to use for their health. The anxiety it causes, outweighing the benifits it can potentially bring.

 

The upshot being that many people are using far more severe, and addictives drugs that are really available, because of the laws we have in place. laws controlling us, the people; not managing things for us, but instead, keeping us managed.

 

And ya damn right Tom about the power of our vote. We should do more to educate our freinds about the power of the preferential system of voting we have. It's no good waiting for the government to spend a fortune on TV adds, teaching us to vote for them (the major parties) through a prefernce vote. But the prefernce vote system is a powerful tool, if people would use it properly.

 

rob