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Claudio Cappuccino
Testi originali Agosto 2000
Lois Rogers
NHS SUPPLIES ADDICTS WITH UKP 11M OF HEROIN
16 July 2000
Sunday Times (UK)
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk
HEROIN with a street value of more than UKP 11m is being supplied
to addictson the National Health Service in an attempt to cut
drug-related crime and reduce the social damage caused by drug
abuse. Despite continuing vocal government resistance to legalising
the use of cannabis, the number of doctors with Home Office licences
to prescribe heroin to addicts has quietly increased. Latest figures
show there are 100 doctors across the country who hold the permits.
Between 1,000 and 3,000 addicts are now getting NHS heroin, while
tens of thousands of other users have to obtain supplies from
backstreet dealers. Critics have attacked the scheme for adding
to pressure on the NHS, which doctors say is short of funds to
provide life-saving cancer drugs, or treatment for debilitating
conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. The heroin is supplied
daily, in its purified pharmaceutical form as diamorphine, for
addicts to inject. Drug policy reformers argue that this is an
effective way of stopping addicts stealing to pay for their habit.
An estimated UKP 300m of property is stolen annually to pay for
black-market heroin, and the cost in police and court time is
much higher. Anne Read, a Plymouth psychiatrist who prescribes
heroin to up to 30 addicts, said: "I am not a legal drug
dealer, this is medical treatment, and it is a way of helping
people."
A study by her team published at the Royal College of Psychiatrists'
annual meeting last week showed a 75% drop in theft among addicts
given NHS heroin. Licences for doctors to prescribe heroin were
introduced in 1997, but have steadily increased. The system was
introduced to control a small number of doctors who were already
prescribing the drug. The intention ultimately is to wean addicts
off the drug, although Read acknowledges this could take up to
10 years in some cases. Some doctors offer the heroin substitute
methadone, for which no Home Office permit is needed, but it has
more unpleasant side effects. Moves to hand the treatment of addicts
to doctors, rather than the legal system, reflect changes in Europe.
Last week Portugal followed Spain and Italy by decriminalising
cannabis and heroin, enabling addicts to seek help instead of
facing the courts. Doctors in Switzerland and Holland have begun
to prescribe heroin, and they point to falls in crime as indicators
of the initiative's success. However, Griffith Edwards, emeritus
professor of addictive behaviour at the National Addiction Centre,
said evidence of the benefits of prescribing heroin was questionable,
because the patients had received high levels of other support.
Susan Greenfield, professor of neuropharmacology at Oxford, condemned
the idea of NHS heroin. "Why should the taxpayer foot the
bill for people to go round in a sleepy haze while the rest of
us work?" she said. "People with genuine life-threatening
conditions cannot get the drugs they need because the NHS funds
are not available."
•••
Jessie Seyfer
SAN FRANCISCO ISSUES ID CARDS FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA USERS
16 Jul 2000
The Fresno Bee
Website: http://www.fresnobee.com/
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- With $25 and a doctor's note, sick people
can get an official city ID card entitling them to use medicinal
marijuana, San Francisco's district attorney proudly announced
Friday. "This represents another stone in the foundation
we're building to make people recognize that cannabis is a legitimate
medicinal agent," Terence Hallinan said. "I'm not really
worried we won't be able to work things out with the federal government."
The program allows patients to avoid local prosecution if caught
possessing the drug. It's modeled on programs in Mendocino County
and Arcata, Calif., that also pose a direct challenge to federal
law. Californians legalized medical marijuana by approving Proposition
215 in 1996, but the measure has been entangled in legal disputes
ever since. Health department officials said their ID card program
would not have been possible without the influence of Hallinan,
who calls himself "America's most progressive district attorney."
"When Proposition 215 passed, many prosecutors said they
wouldn't enforce it," department of public health director
Dr. Mitch Katz said. "But things are different in San Francisco."
As a prosecutor, Hallinan has refused to carry out the War on
Drugs, choosing instead to send minor drug offenders to diversion
programs. Hallinan's stance on pot is shared, however, by a growing
number of law enforcement officials elsewhere in Northern California,
where attitudes toward marijuana have a decidedly mellow tone.
The ID program announced Friday doesn't address how those in need
will obtain the drug; it merely shields them from arrest by certifying
that cardholders have a medical reason to use it. Doctors sign
a form agreeing to monitor the patient's medical condition. The
cards are good for up to two years. Teen-agers can get them too,
with approval from their parent or guardian. "This is a wonderful
civics lesson that could only occur in a place like San Francisco,"
San Francisco Police Department Assistant Chief Prentice Sanders
said. The Office of National Drug Control Policy refused to comment
on the San Francisco program, but the agency has opposed medical
marijuana initiatives, considering them to be a backdoor route
to legalizing marijuana. "Ballot initiatives to date generally
have not limited use of marijuana to a small number of terminally
ill patients, as most voters envisioned," the agency's latest
annual report reads. "Rather, they commonly allow marijuana
to be obtained without prescription and used indefinitely without
evaluation by a physician." Also Friday, a federal judge
hinted he may be forced to allow an Oakland club to distribute
medicinal marijuana because the U.S. Justice Department hasn't
rebutted evidence that cannabis is the only effective treatment
for a large group of seriously ill people. U.S. District Judge
Charles R. Breyer of San Francisco said he would rule Monday in
the complex case, which deals with the conflict between California's
medical marijuana initiative and federal drug regulations. The
White House's drug control agency has said that more scientific
evidence is needed. They got some Thursday at the International
AIDS Conference. Researchers from the University of California-San
Francisco found that pot use did not interfere with the action
of protease inhibitors, the anti-viral drugs that keep HIV in
check. City Supervisor Mark Leno said the UCSF study and the ID
card program are especially important, given San Francisco's history
with AIDS. "I think the medical cannabis movement is especially
strong in San Francisco. Clearly there is a significant number
of people living with HIV and AIDS here," he said. "But
there are number of other medical conditions, like cancer, glaucoma
and chronic pain that can be treated with cannabis."Jane
Weirick, who uses marijuana to alleviate pain from a back ailment,
said the cards "finally give us legitimacy." "I
was taking prescription opiates and was stuck in bed all the time,"
she said. "When I started taking cannabis I was finally able
to function. It was like night and day."Voters have approved
initiatives legalizing medicinal marijuana use in California,
Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington
state. The San Francisco pot ID program has been in operation
for a week. Former Attorney General Dan Lungren had opposed any
attempt to carry out Proposition 215, but since taking office
last year, Bill Lockyer has shifted the state's position, even
standing behind a bill to create a statewide pot ID card program.
Lungren also shut down most of the state's informal pot distribution
clubs. San Francisco's largest pot club remains shuttered, just
three blocks from the city building where the ID program was announced
Friday. San Francisco is now one of the largest cities in the
country to embrace such programs, which police departments have
described as an efficient way to distinguish medical users from
recreational ones. "We are certainly moving into the new
millenium in our thinking," Sanders said. "We find that
this is an orderly way to carry out the law and the will of the
people."
•••
TREASON IN DRUG WAR
18 Jul 2000
Kansas City Star
Website: http://www.kcstar.com/
There have always been many questions surrounding the appropriation
of U.S. funds to help the Colombian government fight drugs. Some
of those dealt with alleged human-rights abuses by the Colombian
military battling anti-government guerrillas. Now there's more.
Last week, Col. James Hiett, former commander of the American
military's anti-drug operation in Colombia, was sentenced to five
months in prison for laundering cash from his wife's drug operation
there. Hiett pleaded guilty in April to charges that he tried
to launder $25,000 from drug shipments his wife, Laurie Hiett,
made from a post office in the U.S. embassy in Bogota to New York.
Consider this: The U.S. government's No. 1 military man in coca-rich
Colombia was protecting his wife's heroin and cocaine operation.
The U.S. Embassy was used as a point of transfer for the drug
trade. It's an outrage. Five months in prison is far too lenient.
Laurie Hiett pleaded guilty in January to charges she shipped
packages containing $700,000 worth of heroin and cocaine to the
United States. She is serving a five-year sentence. Thanks to
the criminal acts by this couple, the work of honest and dedicated
servicemen and women will be more difficult in Colombia. The Hiett
scandal goes beyond a political embarrassment for Congress and
the Clinton White House, which last week signed off on $1.3 billion
in economic and military aid to Colombia. This "betrayal
of trust," as U.S. District Judge Edward Korman said after
sentencing the colonel, goes to the heart of what's wrong with
the U.S. war on drugs in Colombia. The Hietts present another
argument for re-examining American policy. Our government certifies
or decertifies such governments as Mexico and Colombia on whether
their anti-drug programs have been corrupted by narcotraffickers.
How would other countries grade us? A man at Hiett's level has
the ability to determine which narcotrafficking operations are
targeted and which aren't. Such high-level involvement in the
drug trade along with concerns about alleged Colombian military
involvement in atrocities warrant a congressional review of the
policy and a freeze on further funds to Colombia.
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