(1)  Anslinger vs Jazz
(2)  Hemp for Victory
(3)  Marijuana & Heroin & More Laws
(4)  The 60s & 70s
(5)  Marijuana & the Military
(6)  The Shafer Commission
(7)  The War on Drugs & the DEA
(8)  Paraquat
(9)  Military Interdiction & Eradication
(10)  Mandatory Minimum Sentences
(11)  Forfeiture & Informants
(12)  Drug Testing
(13)  Drug Tax Stamp Acts
(14)  References

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(1)  Anslinger vs Jazz

Immediately after the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger made certain that cannabis became unavailable to physicians and pharmacists. He even convinced Dr Ernest Cook, chairman of the Committee on Revision of the United States Pharmacopoeia, to delete Cannabis from the official USP & National Formulary in 1941.

Anslinger implemented a four-part policy to enforce the Marihuana Tax Act. First, he worked to control the legitimate cultivation, and to eradicate the growth of wild hemp. Second, he managed to pacify the press and the public by de-emphasizing the sensational aspects of marijuana. Third, he sought to educate the federal judiciary, and urged them to apply the law strictly.

Fourth, Anslinger allocated federal enforcement resources to fight major traffickers rather than petty users, with the exception of his relentless, obsessive crusade against jazz musicians who smoked "Mezrole". Marijuana often was so-called after Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow, a white musician who called himself a "voluntary Negro". Mezzrow moved from Chicago to Harlem in 1929 and began selling high grade marijuana cigarettes on the streets. In his autobiography, Really the Blues, he said, "Overnight I was the most popular man in Harlem." (1)

From 1943 to 1948, Anslinger maintained constant surveillance and extensive files of many musicians, singers, actors, and comedians, including such greats as Louis Armstron, Count Basie, Milton Berle, Les Brown, Cab Calloway, Jimmy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Jackie Gleason, Bennie Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Andre Kostelanetz, Kate Smith, and the NBC Orchestra. The great jazz drummer Gene Krupa kept time in San Quentin prison for possession of marijuana and involving a minor. Harry Anslinger actually planned to orchestrate a grand nationwide roundup of all his suspects, but his superior in the Treasury Department, Assistant Secretary Foley, cancelled it with a memo:

"Mr Foley disapproves."

Dr James Munch, who was a close friend of Harry Anslinger, later explained the commissioner's fear of jazz in an interview with Larry Sloman, author of Reefer madness (1979):

Sloman: "Why did he want to go after them so much?"

Munch: "Because the chief effect as far as they [Anslinger and the FBN] were concerned was that it lengthened the sense of time, and therefore they could get more grace beats into their music than they could it they simply followed the written copy..."

Sloman: "What's wrong with that?"

Munch: "In other words, if you are a musician, you are going to play a thing the way it is written on a sheet. But, if you're using marijuana, you are going to work in about twice as much music in between the first note and the second note. That's what made jazz musicians. The idea that they could jazz things up, liven them up, you see."

Sloman: "Oh, I see.." (2)

Jazz master Louis Armstrong was busted for possession of marijuana in 1931. He received a 6-month suspended sentence after spending 10 days in jail. Recalling his early days in New Orleans, Armstrong once said:

"One reason we appreciated pot was the warmth it always brought forth… Mary Warner, honey, you sure was good and I enjoyed you heap much. But the price got a little too high to pay, law wise. At first you was a misdemeanor. But as the years rolled by you lost your 'misde' and got meaner and meaner."

The love of hemp has inspired hundreds of popular songs, beginning with the early jazz era and continuing to date.

(2)  Hemp for Victory!

Harry Anslinger was appointed in 1941 to a top-secret committee assigned to discover a "truth serum" for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). His first drug of choice was pure cannabis resin! Its use was discontinued after 15 months because it proved to be unreliable. The subjects usually would laugh or get paranoid, and get hungry. Furthermore, the OSS agents began to use the drug themselves, rather than waste it on suspected spies. (3)

During World War Two, hemp enjoyed a brief comeback as a vital crop after the Japanese invasion of the Philippines cut of America's supply of abaca. The Nazi invasion of Europe eliminated that source of hemp also. The Federal government therefore sponsored a crash program to produce enough hemp fiber to meet America's needs. The general public was informed about the situation in Newsweek magazine (16 October 1942):

"Hemp: -- Part of the cargo on the Mayflower was hemp seed. And, being the raw material for making rope and burlap, it was an important crop in this country all during the sailing ship era. But about the turn of the century it was replaced by imports of Manila hemp, sisal, and jute from Africa and the Orient.

"Long-range planners now are looking to the future even though present stockpiles will last until about 1944. Already the government has contracted for almost all the Haitian output of sisal, and that little republic is increasing its production. Last week the War Production Board approved plans for planting in the United States 300,000 acres of hemp (the only one of the fibers which will grow in this climate) and for building 71 processing mills. Plantings will be concentrated in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, with the processing plants in approximately the same areas.

"This program should assure an adequate supply by the time stocks run out, for hemp is normally only a four month crop. Farmers like it, too, because it helps control weeds, needs no tending until harvest, and leaves the soil in good condition." (4)

Farmers received the booklet Hemp: A War Crop (1942), which brought them up to date:

"In normal times rope and twine made from manila fibers (abaca) imported from the Philippines constituted a large portion of our supply... Hemp imported from Italy, Russia, France and Holland, together with a small amount grown in Wisconsin and Kentucky, was used for medium grade wrapping twine and rope. Because we do not have climatic conditions conducive to the growing of Manila or jute, it is necessary to increase greatly the production of hemp. Thousands of acres in the Midwest will be planted and new factories built to handle the crop. Hemp growing in the U.S., which the Bureau of Narcotics in the past has tried to stop in order to prevent marihuana addiction, is now apparently going to be allowed and even encouraged as a result of the war. This is seen from a War Productions Board order prohibiting the use of domestically produced hemp seed for any purpose except the growing of hemp fiber or the growing of additional hemp seed." (5)

Thanks to the perseverance of hemp activist and author Jack Herer and friends, the unique USDA film Hemp for Victory (1942) was rescued from oblivion and represented on video in modern times. The inspiring instructional film was shown to groups of farmers across the land. The narrator apprised the audiences of their heritage and the near future:

"Long ago when these ancient Grecian temples were new, hemp was already old in the service of mankind. For thousands of years, even then, this plant had been grown for cordage and cloth in China and elsewhere in the east. For centuries prior to 1850 all the ships that sailed the western seas were rigged with hempen ropes and sails. For the sailor, no less than the hangman, hemp was indispensable.

"A 44-gun frigate like our cherished Old Ironsides took over 60 tons of hemp for rigging, including an anchor cable 25 inches in circumference. The Conestoga wagons and prairie schooners of pioneer days were covered with hemp canvas. Indeed the very word canvas comes from the Arabic word for hemp. In those days hemp was an important crop in Kentucky and Missouri. Then came cheaper imported fibers for cordage, like jute, sisal and Manila hemp, and the culture of hemp in America declined.

"But now with Philippine and East Indian sources of hemp in the hands of the Japanese, and shipment from India curtailed, American hemp must meet the needs of out Army and Navy as well as of our industry. In 1942, patriotic farmers at the government's request planted 36,000 acres of seed hemp, an increase of several thousand percent. The goal for 1943 is 50,000 acres of hemp seed.

"In Kentucky much of the seed hemp acreage is on river bottom land such as this. Some of these fields are inaccessible except by boat. Thus plans are afoot for a great expansion of a hemp industry as a part of the war program. This film is designed to tell farmers how to handle this ancient crop now little known outside of Kentucky and Wisconsin.

"This is hemp seed. Be careful how you use it, for to grow hemp legally you must have a federal registration and tax stamp. Ask your county agent about it. Don't forget!"

Hempseed was supplied to some 20,000 contracted farmers with further instructions from the federally financed War Hemp Industries, Inc. Forty-two processing mills were built and equipped at a cost of $360,000 each by the defense Plant Corporation. The narrator of Hemp for Victory! waxed eloquent in closing the film:

"Spinning American hemp into rope yarn or twine in the old Kentucky River mill at Frankfort, Kentucky, another pioneer plant that has been making cordage for more than a century. All such plants will presently be turning out products spun from American-grown hemp: twine of various kinds for tying and upholsterers' work; rope for marine rigging and towing, for hay forks, derricks, and heavy duty tackle, light duty firehose, thread for shoes of millions of American soldiers, and parachute webbing for our paratroopers. As for the United States Navy, every battleship requires 34,000 feet of rope. Here in the Boston Navy Yard, where cables for frigates were made long ago, crews are now working night and day making cordage for the fleet. In the old days rope yarn was spun by hand. The rope yarn feeds through holes in an iron plate. This is Manila hemp from the navy's rapidly dwindling reserves. When it is gone, American hemp will go on duty again. Hemp for mooring ships, hemp for tow lines, hemp for tackle and gear, hemp for countless naval uses both on ship and shore, just as in the days when Old Ironsides sailed the seas victorious in her hempen shrouds and hempen sails. Hemp for Victory!" (6)

Jack Herer and other hemp advocates have claimed that when pilot Captain George Bush (and future President) bailed from a burning plane in World War Two, the lines of his parachute were made of hemp, as was stated by the narrator ("parachute webbing for our paratroopers") in Hemp for Victory! In the otherwise however expert opinion of Carle Schneide, curator of flight material at the Smithsonian Institute:

"Whoever's saying that is all wet. World War Two parachutes were made of cotton, silk and nylon. Hemp is too coarse -- although the Navy did use to make ropes."

Jack Herer exposed the hypocrisy of the "Smithsonian's Suppression of Facts About Cannabis Hemp" in a sidebar of The Emperor Wears No Clothes:

"It should be noted that, even though 50-80% of all their displayed fibers for papers and cloth from their 'Life in America: 1780s to the 1800s' exhibit and 'American Maritime Exhibit, 1492-1850' were made of hemp, the Smithsonian Institute has removed all mention of cannabis hemp as it was used in paper and textiles, referring to it only as 'other fibers' while cotton, wool, flax, sisal, jute, and Manila hemp, etc, are specifically named.

"Museum curator Arkadero's response when questioned on this topic was that, "Children don't need to know about hemp anymore, it confuses them," and the director of the Smithsonian said that even though hemp was the primary fiber, "We are not a fiber museum." (7)

In 1943, the Commodity Credit Corporation contracted for 168,000 acres of hemp straw, and paid $30-50/ton In January 1944, however, the corporation scaled down abruptly to only 60,000 acres. Nor was any hempseed contracted for. The CCC had garnered some 500,000 bushels of hempseed in 1943, and the War Production Board was confident that Italy could provide America's needs. The surplus hempseed was fed to canaries, who sang its praises. The farmers were left holding the bags. Business Week published this report (22 January 1944):

"The WPB is cool to domestic [hemp] now that imports have improved, but CCC and DPC have $35,000,000 at stake -- Both corporations, however, would have more at stake were it not for a partial failure of the 1942 crop of hempseed in Kentucky... Twenty thousand farmers signed, but later their dreams of $200-an-acre hemp (four tons to the acre at $50 a ton) faded when storms flattened part of the crop." (8)

Howard D. Salins, the Managing Director of the Flax and Fiber Institute of America, issued a statement (30 march 1943) condemning the program:

"This is an Example of Cradle to Grave Planning to the End Result: ¾ The New Deal Bureaucrats and their fellow "dollar a year" fiber racketeers of the War Production Board are manipulating the proposition of a promotion and scheme to grow and produce hemp from a plant, outlawed by law, that is the fount of the insidious [sic] drug known as marijuana, the worst and most serious of all (dope) narcotic evils afflicting schoolchildren, in the schools and outside, and grown-ups alike in all walks of life. He fiber itself from this plant is worthless. The seeds from this plant fly far and wide. The resultant wild growth becomes dangerously uncontrollable. In the face of shortage and scarcity of labor, foodstuffs, linseed oil, fibers and other critical materials which are peculiarly being denied us, the corruptors [sic] of American life are now engaged in the promoting of 350,000 acres, erecting 100 buildings and building a large volume of equipment and machinery in a number of Mid-western States for the production of this narcotic (dope) plant product, all of which must reach the staggering cost of $500,000,000 and end in catastrophic failure. A number of land-grant educational institutions are in on this racket. The Commodity Credit Corporation and the War Production Board and the Defense Plant Corporation, through their own created so-called "War Hemp Industries, Inc., Agency", something new in the New Deal bureaucratic set-up, are running this (dope) narcotic show with private racketeers as undercover men. Large profits have been made already by them on the seeds by cheating and gipping [sic] the government. The financial "kill" is figured to be colossal for all the participants. The kill to agriculture, industry (the choicest and most fertile land being demanded) and health and welfare of the American people is going to reach disastrous proportions from which recovery may never be found possible! The power-pressure of the participants in this narcotic (dope) racket is obviously superior to the best interests of the American people even during these dangerous times of their sacrifices and sufferings at home and on the battlefront. The truth of the above report is vouched for. Do you want this (dope) narcotic in your community? You are lined up for it!

Note: -- This whole hemp marijuana racket will be dumped out of existence right after the war is over in accordance with a statement from Washington DC, but obviously not before the "kill" in taxpayers' money has been made and the narcotic has been spread to dope them." (9)

(3)  Marijuana & Heroin & More Laws ~

After World War Two the reigns of law tightened were drawn in on hemp. Congress passed the Boggs Act in November 1951, increasing the penalties for all narcotics violations including marijuana, to provide uniform penalties for the marihuana Tax Act and the narcotics Drug Import and Export Act. The federal penalties were increased again under the Narcotic Control Act of 1956. Representative Clement (NY) introduced a bill in 1951 proposing the death penalty for any violators of the narcotics laws. Congressman Hall (NY) wanted a minimum sentence of 100 years. The Boggs Act wa produced in reaction to the perceived increase in drug use following WW2, especially among young men. Marijuana was accused of causing heroin addiction, and heroin was said to be part of a Chinese Communist plot to destroy America.

In his book The Murderers, Harry Anslinger admitted that for many years he secretly supplied Senator Joseph McCarthy with morphine in order to keep the addicted senator out o the clutches of Commie marijuana-cum-heroin dope dealers. (10)

Dr. Harris Isbell, who was director of research at the Lexington (KY) Public Health Service Hospital, informed the Kefauver Committee about the current scientific knowledge of cannabis when he testified:

"Marihuana smokers generally are mildly intoxicated, giggle, laugh, bother no one, and have a good time. They do not stagger or fall, and ordinarily will not attempt to harm anyone.

"It has not been proved that smoking marihuana leads to crimes of violence or to crimes of a sexual nature. Smoking marihuana has no unpleasant side effects, no dependence is developed on the drug, and the practice can easily be stopped at any time. In fact, it is probably easier to stop smoking marihuana cigarets than tobacco cigarets.

"In predisposed individuals, marihuana may precipitate temporary psychosis and is therefore not an innocuous practice with them." (11)

Mr Boggs was confused and addressed Commissioner Anslinger:

I have forgotten the figure Dr Isbell gave, but my recollection is that only a small percentage of these marihuana cases was anything more than a temporary degree of elation."

Anslinger replied:

"The danger is this: Over 50% of those young addicts started on marihuana smoking. They started there and graduated to heroin." (12)

Several other expert witnesses affirmed the connection between marihuana and heroin, and Mr Boggs himself finally understood the new myth well enough to summarize it in a statement during the debate on the House floor:

"Our younger people usually start on the road which leads to drug addiction by smoking marihuana. They then graduate into narcotic drugs -- cocaine, morphine and heroin. When these younger persons become addicted to drugs, heroin for example, which costs from $8 to $15 per day, they very often must embark on careers of crime in order to buy the supply they needs." (13)

Only a few dissenting voices could be heard, such as jurists whop felt that mandatory minimum sentencing deprived the courts of judicial discretion, which is basic to American law. During the House debate on the bill, Congressman Cellar contended that some youthful first-time offenders would suffer unduly, to which Congressman Jenkins replied with a patently false prophecy:

"The enforcing officers will always have sympathy for the unfortunate consumer, especially if he is harmless. These enforcing officers are going to protect the high school boys and girls before the criminal courts until they know that they are collaborating with the peddlers."

During the course of the Senate hearings held by the Kefauver Committee in 1951, fifteen of the 27 addicts who testified stated that marihuana was the first drug they had used as a stepping-stone to heroin.

After the passage of the Boggs Act, James Bennett (Director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons) addressed judges at a conference of the 5th Circuit in 1954, arguing that "The Boggs Bill was passed due to hysteria", and violated the constitutional principle of the separation of powers. Displeased by this, Commissioner Anslinger assigned FBN agents to follow Bennett and report on his public statements and associates. The 5th Judicial Court, however, took Bennett's advice and appointed a committee that unanimously recommended that the law be amended by removal of the provisions for mandatory minimum sentences. Congressman Boggs criticized the judges, saying:

"I cannot imagine a more short-sighted recommendation. Anyone who has studied the narcotics trade and has seen the pitiful effect in countless homes throughout this nation from youths to the very old must recognize that this is one of the most vicious things in our country."

A few years later, with the help of the FBN, the Narcotic Control Act of 1956 was passed through the bowels of Congress with little debate or public attention, and established increasingly high penalties for possession and sale of illicit drugs. During the hearings, Anslinger again spoke out against hemp. Senator Daniel asked:

"Now, do I understand it from you that, while we are discussing marijuana, the real danger there is that the use of marijuana leads many people eventually to the use of heroin, and the drugs cause them complete addiction; is that true?"

Anslinger answered: "That is the great problem and our great concern about the use of marijuana, that eventually if used over a long period, it does lead to heroin addiction!"

Senator Daniel asked: "As I understand it from having read your book, a habitual user of marijuana or even a user to a small extent presents  a problem to the community, and is a bad thing. Marijuana can cause a person to commit crimes and do many heinous things; is that not correct?"

Anslinger replied: "That is correct. It is a dangerous drug, and is so regarded all over the world."

During the Daniel Committee hearings for the Narcotic Control Act, Senator Walker asked Anslinger about marijuana and crime: "Is it or is it not a fact that the marijuana user has been responsible for many of our most sadistic, terrible crimes in this nation, such as sex slayings, and matters of that kind?"

Anslinger responded: "There have been instances of that, Senator. We have some rather tragic occurrences by users of marijuana. It does not follow that all crimes can be traced to marijuana. There have been many brutal crimes traced to marijuana, but I would not say that it is the controlling factor in the commission of crimes."

Senator Walker then asked: "I will grant you that it is not the controlling factor, but is it a fact that your investigation shows many of the most sadistic, terrible crimes, solved or unsolved, we can trace directly to the marijuana user?"

Anslinger said: "You are correct in many cases, Senator Walker."

"In other words, it builds up a false sort of feeling on the part of the user, and he has no inhibitions against doing anything; am I correct?

Anslinger answered: "He is completely irresponsible."

Senator Price Daniel (TX) got off a potshot at marijuana during the floor debate when he informed his colleagues thus: "Marihuana is a drug which starts most addicts in the use of drugs. Marihuana, in itself a dangerous drug, can lead to some of the worst crimes committed by those who are addicted to the habit. Evidently, its use leads to the heroin of habit and then to the final destruction of the persons addicted."

(4)  The 60s & 70s ~

The marijuana-to-heroin fable was gospel to narcocrats and politicians, but fortunately for humanity, social pioneers such as the beatniks of the 50s and hippies of the 60s renaissance learned for themselves that cannabis is a real pleasure, is not addictive, and does not lead to heroin addiction.  They praised its virtues against the propaganda and suppression imposed by domineering autocrats. Since 1937, much of the general populace, wise in its folly, has feared marijuana. Meanwhile, many millions of youths and adults still possessed of some exploratory behavior rediscovered the forbidden fruit of cannabis. The use of marijuana quickly spread across the entire spectrum of society. Marijuana was no longer confined to marginal citizens such as racial minorities and criminals. Marijuana became a powerful political symbol of liberty and civil disobedience. Activist Jerry Rubin exemplified the concept in a speech he made in May 1970:

"Smoking pot makes you a criminal and a revolutionary --- as soon as you take your first puff, you are an enemy of society."

The juggernaut of drug laws also was used to crush dissenters. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover said in a 1968 memo to all field offices: "Since the use of marijuana and other narcotics is widespread among members of the New Left, you should be alert to opportunities to have them arrested by local authorities on drug charges."

Thus, the black militant activist Lee Otis Johnson was sentenced by a Texas court to 30 years in prison for having given one "joint" to an undercover agent. Lee Johnson was head of the Houston branch of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). His conviction was overturned by a Federal district court in 1972. (14)

The United Nations adopted the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1961. The terms of Article 28(3) state that each member nation can "adopt such measures as may be necessary to prevent misuse of, and illicit traffic in, the leaves of 6the cannabis plant… The use of Cannabis (hemp) for other than medical and scientific purposes must be discontinued as soon as possible, but in any case within 25 years."

The US Congress waited until 1967 to ratify the convention, and in 1970 passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. That law claimed that cannabis had  "no recognized medical uses" and was to be controlled as required by "United States obligations under international treaties."

President Kennedy established an Ad Hoc Panel on Drug Abuse in 1962. At the White House Conference on Narcotic and Drug Abuse that September, the panel announced:

"It is the opinion of the Panel that the hazards of marihuana per se have been exaggerated and that long criminal sentences imposed on an occasional user or possessor of the drug are in poor social perspective. Although Marihuana has long held the reputation of inciting individuals to commit sexual offenses and other antisocial acts, the evidence is inadequate to substantiate this. Tolerance and physical dependence do not develop and withdrawal does not produce an abstinence syndrome." (15)

In 1963, the President's Advisory Commission on Narcotics and Drug Abuse also distinguished clearly between cannabis and opiates:

"An offender whose crime is sale of a marijuana reefer is subject to the same term of imprisonment as the peddler selling heroin. In most cases the marijuana reefer is less harmful than any opiate. For one thing, while marijuana may provoke lawless behavior, it does not create physical dependence. This Commission makes a flat distinction between the two drugs and believes that unlawful sale or possession of marijuana is a less serious offense than the unlawful sale or possession of an opiate."

President Johnson's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice also rejected the "stepping-stone" or "gateway" myth of marijuana-to-heroin use:

"Marijuana is equated in law with the opiates, but the abuse characteristic of the two have almost nothing in common. The opiate produces physical dependence. Marijuana does not. A withdrawal sickness appears when the use of opiates is discontinued. No such symptoms are associated with marijuana. The desired dose of opiates tends to increase over time, but this is not true of marijuana. Both can lead to psychic dependence, but so can almost any substance that alters the state of consciousness.

"There is evidence that a majority of the heroin users who come to the attention of public authorities have, in fact, had some prior experience with marijuana. But this does not mean that one leads to the other in the sense that marijuana has an intrinsic quality that creates a heroin liability. There are too many marijuana users who do not graduate to heroin, and too many heroin addicts with no known prior marijuana use, to support such a theory. Moreover there is no scientific basis for such a theory."

Since then, the family of "soft" or "gateway" drugs has been expanded to include tobacco, alcohol and marijuana.

The National Commission on marihuana guestimated that up to 25 million Americans had used marihuana circa 1971. Since then, the numbers of users has fluctuated, and their demographics continue to change with society, the times, and the manipulation of statistics. Nearly 400,000,000 people worldwide use various forms of occasion or regularly.

Several congressional committees conducted hearing on the issue of drug control during 1969 and 1970, culminating in the passage of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, and the Controlled Substances Act in October 1970. The new measures integrated all controlled substances into a uniform framework of regulations, reduced "simple" possession of drugs to a misdemeanor, and established a National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse to study marihuana in a formal, authoritative manner. The new statutes established a scheme of five "schedules" for controlled substances according to their potential for abuse. Substances in Schedule I have a high abuse potential, no accepted use in medicine, and are unsafe to use even with medical supervision. Schedule IV substances have low abuse potential, limited liability to cause dependence, are accepted in current medical practice, and are dispensed with minimal regulation. Cannabis was condemned to Schedule I, along with heroin, subject to the most stringent control and law enforcement. The Bureau of narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) was created by merging the Treasury Department's FBN with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare's Bureau of Drug Abuse Control.

(5)  Marijuana & The Military

Drug abuse was a major problem in Vietnam and remains a problem today since the CIA and other groups secured their interests in Southeast Asia's opium production. American troops in Vietnam smoked lots of potent marijuana to alleviate the dismal situation. In one study of 1,064 soldiers, only 32% said that they had not smoked it! In 1971, General Abrams, the US forces' commander, ordered officers to help combat drug trafficking and abuse, including marijuana. The privates sometimes reacted by "fragging" (fragmenting) officers with grenades, as happened to a marine sergeant who testified about it to a Senate subcommittee hearing in 1970. A private tossed a grenade under his bed, and he was critically injured. Professor Hardin Jones told another Senate subcommittee:

"The officers I talked to in Vietnam were worried about cannabis because they suspected that this may have been a part of some of the terrible events such as the murdering of officers... All of the officers were uptight about this situation because they didn't know when it might be their turn.

"The incidence wasn't so great that it would be likely to induce a neurosis in the officers, but it was great enough to worry about, and they knew that this kind of event was not associated with the heroin user, but rather with the cannabis user, and also the amphetamine user. But the amphetamine user also has to be a cannabis user, and the tie between the two is very, very great."

Actually, amphetamine abusers tend to quite dislike cannabis.

Even heroes smoked marijuana, as the Associated Press corroborated on June 22, 1971:

"A Congressional Medal of Honor winner says he was 'stoned' on marihuana the night he fought of two waves of Vietcong soldiers and won America's highest military honor:

"It was on April 1, 1970, when Mr [Peter] Lemon, an Army Specialist 4, used his rifle, machine gun and hand grenades to smash a large attack on his position.

"He fought the enemy single-handed and dragged a wounded comrade to the rear before collapsing from exhaustion and three wounds. At a medical center, he refused treatment until more seriously injured men has been cared for.

"It was the only time I ever went into combat stoned", Mr Lemon said. "You get really alert when you're stoned because you have to be. We were partying the night before. We weren't expecting any action because we were in a support group. All the guys were 'heads'. We'd sit around smoking grass and getting stoned and talking about when we'd get to go home."

Cannabis also poses a threat to nuclear security. In 1974, the US Army disqualified 33 military policemen from guard duty at the Misau Ammunition Depot (including nuclear weapons) in Germany, because the MPs allegedly had been smoking hashish while on guard duty. (16)

Sailor Gary Anderson got caught smoking marijuana in the lower missile compartment aboard the nuclear submarine Thomas Jefferson in 1976, and he implicated 27 other crewmen. He told of "widespread drug abuse aboard the subs. The Navy is covering up a drug scandal." Anderson was introduced to drugs the day after he reported for duty. He said:

"I was told on at least three occasions by officers ranging in rank from chief warrant officer to lieutenant that 'We don't care if you smoke. Just don't get caught.'" (17)

When David Kaplan of the Center for Investigation Reporting (Oakland, CA) was interviewed on radio station KCBS in San Francisco (24 April 1981). He stated:

"As a lot of people recognize, drugs are a problem in the military, and some of the people who had worked aboard US Navy submarines told us how they would go to the reactor room to smoke marijuana because it's the only room in the submarine with adequate ventilation.

"So you could imagine what kind of problems this thing would bring. A Poseidon submarine... has enough atomic firepower aboard to incinerate 160 Soviet cities and these guys are getting stoned!"

Small wonder then that in his introduction to the hearing on The Marihuana-Hashish Epidemic and Its Impact on United States Security (1975), Senator James Eastland was able to keep a straight face and say:

"I consider the hearing which are the subject of this record to be among the most significant ever held by any committee of Congress! They may play a role in reversing a trend towards national disaster. Without public awareness, our country has become caught up in a marihuana-hashish epidemic that probably eclipses, in gravity, the national epidemics that have been so debilitating on the population of a number of Middle Eastern countries. (18)

(6)  The Shafer Commission ~

The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 established a commission to study marijuana President Nixon rejected the idea of legalizing cannabis no matter what the commission might recommend, even before its report was written:

"As you know, there is a commission that is supposed to make recommendations to me about this subject, and in this instance, however, I have such strong views that I will express them. I am against legalizing marihuana. Even if this commission does recommend that it be legalized, I will not follow that recommendation... I do not believe that legalizing marijuana is in the best interests of our young people and I do not think it's in the best interests of this country."

A few weeks later, Nixon remonstranced on the topic of marijuana in relation to heroin and the need for "a massive program of information for the American people with regard to how the drug habit begins and how we eventually end up with so many being addicted to heroin...

"In that respect, that is one of the reasons I have taken such a strong position with regard to the question of marihuana. I realize this is controversial. But I can see no social or moral justification whatsoever for legalizing marihuana. I think it would be exactly the wrong step. It would simply encourage more and more of our young people to start down the long, dismal road that leads to hard drugs and eventually to self-destruction."

The National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse was chaired by former Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer. The commission  recommended changes in the federal law:

"Possession of marihuana for personal use would no longer be an offense, but marihuana possessed in public would remain contraband subject to summary seizure and forfeiture.

"Casual distribution of small amounts of marihuana for no renumeration, or insignificant renumeration not involving profit would no longer be an offense."

In his letter of transmittal of the Report on Marihuana to President Nixon, Shafer stated:

"Whatever the facts are, we have reported them. Wherever the facts have logically led us, we have followed and used them in reaching our recommendations. We hope this Report will be a foundation upon which credibility can be restored and upon which a rational policy can be predicated. (19)

Instead of heeding the sage advice of the Shafer Commission, President Nixon declared "war on drugs" in a message to Congress on June 17, 1971. He depicted drug use as a "national emergency" and claimed:

"If we cannot destroy the drug menace in the United States, then it will surely destroy us. Drug traffic is public enemy number one domestically in the United States today and we must wage a total offensive. World-wide, nation-wide, government-wide, and if I may say so, media wide."

President Ford was less strident that Nixon concerning drug issues. The Ford administration appointed a Domestic Council Task Force that released a White Paper on Drug Abuse in September 1975. It concluded that marihuana presents the least potential harm to individuals and society, and recommended that federal efforts against drugs should be focused instead on major trafficking cartels and manufacturers of heroin, barbiturates, and particularly amphetamines. The Domestic Council declared:

"We must be realistic about what can be achieved and what the appropriate federal role is in the war against drugs. We should stop raising unrealistic expectations of total elimination of drug abuse from our society... Regrettably, we probably will always have a drug problem of some proportion. Therefore we must be prepared to continue our efforts indefinitely, in order to contain the problem at a minimal level, and in order to minimize the adverse social costs of drug abuse."

In an address to Congress on August 2, 1977, President Carter became the first president to publicly endorse the decriminalization of marihuana:

"Penalties against possession of a drug should be no more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself: and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use. Therefore, I support legislation amending federal laws to eliminate all federal criminal penalties of up to one ounce of marijuana."

Several organizations, such as the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, the American Council of Churches, and others also endorsed decriminalization.

Such political hopes were lost in scandal when Peter Bourne, the director of the White House Office of Drug Abuse Policy, was forced to resign in 1978 after he foolishly wrote an illegal prescription for Quaaludes for one of his aides. When leaving the White House, Bourne told the press:

"There is a high incidence of marijuana use... and occasional use of cocaine by staff members."

The Strategy Council for Drug Abuse and Drug Traffic Prevention made this admission in 1979:

"Drug abuse in the United States has evolved from an acute to a chronic problem. It is apparent from the magnitude of annual drug consumption in the United States that the use of drugs, including alcohol, has become an integral part of our culture."

The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, conducted in 1982, found some 24 million people who admitted that they smoked marijuana.

(7)  The War on Drugs & the DEA

After he declared war on drugs in 1971, President Nixon established a Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention (SADDAP) and the Office for Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE). Secret wiretaps were used, and "Heroin Hotlines" were set up to obtain anonymous tips by telephone. Federal officers began making street arrests of dealers and buyers, a trespass of authority that angered local law enforcement agencies. Federal drug raiders sorely abused the "no-knock" provision (Title II) of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Prevention Act, which permitted officers to enter premises without a warrant or other notice if they believed that the drugs being sought would be destroyed or if someone's safety or life would be endangered by giving notice. The provision was repealed in 1974. BNDD and Customs agents confiscated nearly 500,000 pounds of marijuana in 1972. ODALE was merged with the BNDD and the Office of National Narcotics Intelligence in 1973 to form the notorious Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) also was established in 1973 as a front for the programs of substance abuse prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation in the federal shell game of drug agencies. (20)

In his book Agency of Fear, Edward Epstein documented how the Nixon administration established ODALE and ultimately the DEA as a super-agency and "private police force" to sidestep the CIA and FBI. The ODALE was financed by grants from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration in blatant violation of the congressional mandate prohibiting the LEAA from using its funds for federal programs. Epstein wrote:

"The DEA was the final stage of the White House timetable for consolidating its power over the investigative agencies of the government... If the Watergate burglars had not been arrested and connected to the White House strategists, the DEA might have served as the strong investigative arm for domestic surveillance that President Nixon had quested after. It had the authority to request wiretaps and no-knock warrants, and to submit targets to the Internal Revenue Service; and, with its counter-intelligence agents, it had the talent to enter residences surreptitiously, gather intelligence on the activities of other agencies of the government, and interrogate suspects. Yet, despite these potential powers, the efforts of the White House had been effectively truncated by the Watergate exposures."

Though Nixon was unable to benefit from the DEA, his successors have profited handsomely from the monster. Two years after it was established, the Senate Government Operations Permanent Investigations Subcommittee charged high DEA officials with corruption, cover-ups, and mismanagement of money and personnel. Several hundred former employees of the Customs Service who transferred to the DEA requested to be returned to Customs. In Latin America, the DEA is widely considered to be a cover for covert CIA operations. The DEA certainly employs many former CIA agents. DEA agents south of the US border have created local drug vigilante groups by selecting, training, equipping and paying the leaders and members. The teams sometimes arrest, torture, and illegally deport their fellow citizens to the USA for prosecution. The flow of drugs into the USA has continued unabated despite all the militance that has been mustered against the problem. (21)

 The US Agency for International Development (AID) supplies much of the equipment used by the drug agencies of several foreign nations, and funds efforts to curtail coca cultivation by introducing alternative crops. In Peru, the AID money was given as low-interest loans to farmers who promised not to grow coca on their land. Most of the money was used by opportunistic farmers to increase their production of coca.

The entire apparatus, with over 4,000 agents and their managers, is corrupt, scandal-ridden, and out of control. In one glaring bad example, the DEA imported a large amount of cocaine in 1988 and staged phony busts to get good press coverage and justify its other abuses with lies and half-truths. In 1984, DEA agents and informants smuggled 984 pounds of cocaine into Texas in a "reverse sting", then dumped it at a roadblock to be discovered by local police when the sting was called off by the sting targets, who had been forewarned. The same thing happened in September 1988 in Harris County (TX). The DEA, state troopers, and local police collaborated in a fraudulent media manipulation to present a failed sting operation as a major victory in the war on drugs. When the truth came out, journalists at a DEA press conference were told yet another lie:

"It's a very rare technique... There are two things the DEA does not stage during its [phony] drug busts: it does not insinuate that there are no drugs and there are no violators..."

Associate Attorney General Francis Keating pledged to investigate the allegations of systematic lying by the DEA. After a meeting with DEA press agent William Alden, Keating announced:

"I have been assured that it is not the policy of the DEA to lie or mislead the media, nor is it DEA policy to misrepresent information to the media or the public in any fashion. I am satisfied that this is a wise policy which continues to be carefully followed."

According to defense attorney Phil green of Houston, the DEA also gave two drug chemists the reagents necessary to synthesize amphetamine and Quaaludes, and built a laboratory for them. They watched them make and deliver the drugs, but never intercepted them, though the chemists were arrested at a later date. The chemists retired after two years. The DEA then raided the empty lab site and recovered one-half of a Quaalude tablet from a vacuum cleaner. In another instance, Corbet Mitchell III paid a DEA operative for instructions to manufacture amphetamine. The agent carefully explained the process and offered to assist him. Federal court records obtained through the Freedom of Informatoin Act in 1988 state:
 "Mitchell purchased a large amount of precursor chemicals from the DEA storefront and was followed by agents, but they lost contact with him. The finished product appeared on college campuses soon after." (22)

(8)  Paraquat

Beginning in 1976, the federal government spent $60 million to fund the Mexican government program of aerial spraying of marijuana fields with Agent Orange (2,4-D) herbicide for opium, and Paraquat (Gramoxene) for marijuana. The DEA sent hundreds of aircraft and advisors to assist the Federales. In September 1976, the Carter administration terminated all funding for the program, but Mexico continued to buy and use its own supplies.

Paraquat is a non-selective herbicide that shrivels plants, giving them a sickly yellow tint and leaving a thin film of the mutagenic toxin. It causes serious respiratory ailments such as fibrosis, lung lesions, intestinal disorders and convulsions, even in minute doses. It kills by causing irreversible kidney damage and respiratory failure. There is no antidote.

Marijuana farmers in Mexico observed that the action of Paraquat depends on sunlight. Consequently, they harvested marijuana immediately after it was sprayed, and wrapped it in dark cloth for export to the USA. In March 1978, 13% of the marijuana samples from the southwest USA were found to be contaminated with Paraquat. A nationwide survey found 3.6% of 910 samples were contaminated. Combustion testing indicated that about 0.2% of Paraquat on marijuana is smoked, and it was estimated that over 6000 marijuana smokers were at risk of exposure to as much as 500 milligrams of Paraquat annually. Researchers found no clinical cases of Paraquat poisoning during the studies, but no national search was made for such cases. (23)

At the behest of President Reagan and the sanction of Congress, the DEA again sprayed Paraquat on marijuana in national forests in Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee in 1983, despite public protests and a restraining order by US District Court Judge Charles Moye. The Environmental Policy Act prohibits the use of Paraquat in national forests. US Representative Elliott Levitas called the spraying program "a dingbat idea" and estimated that the spraying, which cost nearly $1 million and involved only about 60 plants, cost $16,666 per plant. Money was not the object, however; officials acknowledged that one reason for the spraying was to impress the government of Columbia with videos of American efforts to control cannabis with Paraquat, in order to convince them to do likewise. Georgia's Governor Joe Harris was not concerned about the potential health hazard:

"We don't have any responsibility to those persons. They are doing something illegal."

Dr Corey Slovis, director of emergency services at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, said: "The death penalty for smoking marijuana is too severe a penalty for anybody."

When White House drug advisor Carlton Turner appeared on national television to justify the action, he said that if anyone died from Paraquat-poisoned pot, it would be deserved punishment!

During the Paraquat panic of 1978, Carlton Turner worked for the University of Mississippi Marijuana Research program, which was chartered to synthesize THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis. At that time, Turner persistently tried to advertise a "Paraquat Tester" in High Times magazine. The magazine was not accepting ads for Paraquat test kits because none had been proven to work. High Times associate editor Dean Latimer entertained Turner's daily phone calls for a month, and finally asked for a sample. Turner delivered a useless "Rube Goldberg" kit. He went on to become the White House "drug czar" under President Reagan in 1981. In April 1985, Turner called for the death penalty of drug dealers in his address to a PRIDE conference in Atlanta. He resigned in December 1986 after being discredited in Newsweek and other publications for his stated belief:

"Pot smoking may lead to homosexuality... gays who use marijuana are disking damage to their immune system and vulnerability to AIDS."

Turner had visited some drug-treatment centers and learned that about 40% of the patients had engaged in homosexual activity. Turner said: "It seems to be something that follows along from their marijuana use… My concern is, how is the biological system affected by heavy marijuana use? The public needs to be thinking about how drugs affect people's lifestyles… No one is saying that marijuana will cause AIDS, but if you're in a high-risk category, you certainly don't want to use something that will impair your immunological system."

Newsweek added this note: "Meanwhile, Dr Stanley Weiss of the National Cancer Institute says that a preliminary study found no causative link between pot and AIDS."

After his resignation, Turner conveniently went into business developing urine testing programs with Robert DuPont and Peter Bensinger, both former directors of NIDA.

The Columbian government began spraying marijuana fields Roundup in July 1984. About 23,500 acres were under cultivation, providing about 10,000 tons for export to the USA. Columbia provided about 60% of the US market at the time. President Reagan wrote a letter of praise to Columbia's President Betancur:

"I congratulate your government's decision to undertake a national aerial herbicide spraying campaign against marijuana. Your efforts serve as an example for all nations to follow." (24)

(9) Interdiction & Eradication

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the use if federal troops to enforce civilian laws. The act has long been considered an essential protection against militarism in America, but it has been conveniently violated since 1969. The Act was amended in 1982 to allow the use of US military to enforces drug laws.

On September 21, 1969, the federal government launched its spectacular "Operation Intercept" in an attempt to arrest the flow of drugs across the Mexican-American border. It ended in failure only 20 days later. It was the nation's largest search and seizure operation by civil authorities. Before Operation Intercept, border inspectors spent an average of one minute searching each vehicle crossing the border. During the operation, inspectors spent about three minutes on each vehicle, creating endless delays. Nearly 2,000 agents and inspectors, many of whom were transferred from other posts, worked along the border during the first week of Operation Intercept. 1,979,824 people crossed the border during the first week of Operation Intercept. Of these, 1,824 were strip-searched, and only 33 people were arrested for all the effort. Distributors merely changed their methods of smuggling to flying, shipping, and other means. Commerce and tourism dropped over 50%. Absenteeism soared among Mexican workers and students who couldn't cross the border in good time. As indignation mounted, the newspapers and chambers of commerce protested loudly. The National Confederation of Chambers of Commerce called the operation "an absurd and exaggerated program for the meager results it has produced." During the year ending June 30, 1969, customs officials seized just over 57,000 pounds of marijuana, for an average of about 150 lb/day. During the 20 days of Operation Intercept, 3,202 lb of marijuana were seized to produce nearly the same average amount per day. Nonetheless, the US Department of Justice released a statement gloating over their small success in making marijuana "unavailable in Miami and almost unavailable at Yale, Harvard, and the University of California. A similar or even more tight supply condition exists at the University of Chicago, Rice Institute, Oklahoma University, Southern Methodist University and Northwest University."

After Deputy Attorney General Kleindeist and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Rossides proudly announced that marijuana was "almost unavailable" at the University of California in Berkeley and L.A., a study undertaken the psychology department at UCLA showed that to be a lie. The supply of cannabis had been reduced for only half of the 478 students interviewed; the others maintained their preferred levels of intake. The students without marijuana shifted to other drugs, especially to potent Asian hashish and to alcohol. Many people went out looking for wild hemp in America. The New York Times (7 November 1969) reported on the resurgence of interest in wild "ditchweed" hemp during and after Operation Intercept:

"The Director of the Kansas Department of Agriculture's Noxious Weeds Division reported that there were 52,050 acres of marijuana in the state in 1968 ¾ the figure is probably higher this year. The plant is also growing in wild profusion throughout Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois...

"In Indiana, farmers complain of the difficulty of clearing the plant from the edges of the fields. According to underground sources, an elderly farmer in the Champaign-Urbana area, near the University of Illinois, has simply let a field go to marijuana.

He sits in his farmhouse with field glasses, these sources say, waiting for youths to come and pick the crop. Then he calls the police and collects an informers fee.."

When DEA administrator Peter Bensinger gave testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice in September 1979, he reported that in a period of only 45 days during an operation that year in the southeast USA, the DEA, Customs Service and Coast Guard had captured 900,000 pounds of marijuana, arrested 220 persons for smuggling, and confiscated 33 ships, 6 planes, and 18 cars and trucks. Taxpayers paid for the police action. Consumer prices rose slightly in response.

President Bush also declared war against drugs on September 5, 1989. In his first major televised speech after his inauguration, he promised to spend billions of dollars fighting drugs, and to increase the use of military forces in the effort. He made good on his promise on December 20, 1989, when the USA again invaded Panama in Operation Just Cause to oust General Manual Noriega and his Panama Defense Forces, allegedly because of his tyranny, and supposedly because his drug trafficking threatened US security. Noriega was taken to the USA for trials, at a cost of over 1,000 lives and nearly $200 million.

In 1990, the military participated in the secretive Operation Ghost Dancer. Despite local protests, the 9th Infantry Division was used to raid marijuana crops in Oregon, which was selected because "it ranks high among the marijuana-producing states in the U.S.", according to a White House spokesman. Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR) said:

"It was an appropriate and effective use of our federal resources. We have to embark upon an actual warfare in order to accomplish the objective of getting control of the drugs that are taking over so much of our country today and our people. In no way is this to violate the civil rights of any individual." (25)

William Bennett, who was appointed by President Bush as director of the White House Office of national Drug Control Policy, blamed Oregon's liberal laws for the situation. Bennett said:

"Oregon must pass tougher laws, build more prisons, hire more police, and take its war against drugs more seriously. Without such efforts, the drug problem is not going to get better fast enough."

Amongst his other memorable contributions to drug education, Bennett also declared:

"Marijuana smoking makes people stupid."

During an interview on the Larry King Show in 1989, he said: "I have no moral problems with beheading drug dealers -- only legal ones."

Bennett also facilitated a $2.9 million grant to dress Texas National Guard agents in cactus camouflage and patrol the border. In an address to the California Senate in June 1970, Bennett tried to resurrect and whip the dead horse of "marijuana-to-heroin" when he said:

"Marijuana is how this country got into this problem in the first place. Under current California law the possession of less than one ounce of marijuana isn't published any more severely than a traffic ticket. It's classed as a minor infraction with no more than a $100 fine. I believe this is far too lenient.

"When this law was passed, it was mistakenly thought it was OK to possess small amounts of marijuana. Yet we know that most people get started on drugs through the casual use of marijuana. Because of the potency of some marijuana sold today is almost 20 times more powerful than the marijuana f the late 1960s, it can no longer be thought of as a harmless drug and Californians should recriminalize the possession of even small amounts of it."

Californians were treated to the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP), found by the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement and the DEA. In its first year, CAMP troops destroyed about 65,000 plants. By 1986, the count had risen to 506,306 plants at a cost of nearly $10 million. President Reagan's Drug Policy Board cited CAMP as a prototype o its national "cannabis suppression" strategy. California Attorney General John Van de Kamp, founder of CAMP, called the program a "keystone" of California's anti-drug efforts and an "undeniable success", but an investigation conducted by The Bee (Sacramento) showed otherwise:

"CAMP's claims that it is winning the pt wars are based in the assumption that fewer plants are being grown, and only a fraction of the crop escapes detection by the raiding teams. Critics say CAMP under-estimates the amount of marijuana that makes it onto the streets, and officials admit they have no way of knowing how many plants they-re missing.

"CAMP's estimates of the value of marijuana are arbitrary. Each plant is assumed to be worth $2,000, whether it is a mature plant, a seedling plant, or a plant that has had its valuable buds harvested.

"While the number of plants confiscated in Trinity, Humboldt and Mendocino counties has declined, officials in some counties outside of the Emerald Triangle and in Oregon and Idaho are finding more plants, and say that CAMP is just moving the problem.

Critics say law enforcement has exaggerated the danger to the public from violence associated with marijuana cultivation, and parleyed the public's fears into support for CAMP.

"A forfeiture program, in which private land used for marijuana planting is seized, is driving growers onto public lands at the same time that federal forestry officials are saying they don't have enough personnel to handle existing marijuana-related problems in the forests.

"Despite a court injunction restricting CAMP's tactics in the field, local residents continue to complain that the helicopter raids disrupt their lives, frighten their children and spook their livestock." (26)

Ed Parsons, a former Humboldt County deputy district attorney, said:

"It's a state and federal boondoggle of the first order, an abuse of our elected official's fiscal responsibility. They spending millions up here on a substance that's is not even killing people like crack is in San Francisco. We are blessed with armed troops from out of helicopters, military fatigues and conditions that can only be called military operations year after year in our country."

Several hundred formal complaints of civil liberty abuses were filed against CAMP in federal court, charging that agents buzzed homes with helicopters and planes, held innocent people at gunpoint, charged into gardens and yards without search warrants, and in one case shot a family's dog. US District Court Judge Robert Aquilar ruled in February 1985 that CAMP agents had "on numerous occasions conducted warrentless searches and seizures" and committed "sustained and repeated buzzings, hoverings and dive bombing that at best disturb and at worst terrorize, the hapless residents below." Local activists for the Citizens' Observation Group (COG) organized to follow CAMP agents and catch them in violation of Judge Aquilar's ruling.
 Dozens of boobytraps are found by pot raiders throughout California each year. In September 1986, a DEA officer discovered an explosive device rigged to one of the 102 plants in a guerrilla garden, set to explode if the plant was cut or uprooted. A sign of the times was found pieced together with newsprint and tacked to a tree in the Tahoe National Forest in 1988:

"I'm watching you. The best way to avoid dying is to turn around. We're organized crime. Justice through murder. Risk death. No way out. No future. Booby trapped, and I give you fair warning." (27)

The Bee (Sacramento) interviewed a marijuana cultivator in Garberville who said growers hire Mexicans to perform many of the chores, including guard duty because "they work cheap and at the end of the season they're expendable." Between 1983 and 1988 there were at least 10 marijuana-related homicides in the forests of California, and an average of 40 violent incidents each year.

In October 1986, Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng and Smokey the Bear announced plans to create a 500-person force, trained by the DEA or FBI "to battle marijuana growers who have seized control of almost 1 million acres of national forest deemed unmanageable" by the Forest Service. Congress authorized about $20 million for the effort and made marijuana growing in national forests a federal felony. The USDA later claimed that, "heavily armed pot growers forced the agency to close 886,000 acres of national forest lands in 1987." The San Jose (CA) Mercury News reported a scare story spread by officials in October 1986:

"Max Peterson, chief of the Forest Service, told reporters that a forest ranger recently accompanied a women's club excursion group into the Klamath National Forest in Northern California to look for wildflowers and found a number of live grenades dancing at the end of a trip wire.

"However, a top law enforcement officer said he was unaware of the incident."'I'm the chief of law enforcement for the Klamath National Forest, so I would know about it', he said." (28)

Operation harvest provided 24-hour coverage of the Arizona-Mexico border by National Guard units from four states for 30 days in 1987, during which time they identified 93 aircraft that fit the smuggling profile. National Guard or Customs aircraft attempted to intercept a third of the targets, but only caught six, none of which carried drugs. The operation cost $960,000. During an 18-day operation in may 1988, the navy and Coast Guard used four destroyers and frigates to stop 35 ships out of 571 spotted by radar. They made only one seizure of marijuana, worth about $400,000. The operation cost $6.5 million.
 In May 1988, the frustrated House voted 385-20 to have the military seal the nation's borders and "substantially halt" the flow of illegal drugs into the USA -- within 45 days! The defense Department submitted a job estimate of $22 billion and said it would require 110 AWACs, 96 infantry battalions, 53 helicopter companies, 165 cruisers and destroyers, and 17 fighter squadrons. To begin with, the Pentagon had only 34 AWACs in its repetoire. Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci told Congress the sobering truth in June 1988 calling it "a mission the armed forces cannot accomplish under any foreseeable rules of engagement. All the eradication and interdiction efforts in the world will not be effective as long as the demand for drugs in this country is so great." (29)

The Joint Task Force (JTF), federal agencies, 7th Infantry Division Army troops and the National Guard raided northern California pot farmers during Operation Green Sweep in July 1990, because President Bush "was concerned about drug interdiction on public lands", according to the explanation offered by the Bureau of land Management. Humboldt County Sheriff Dave Renner publicly dissociated himself from the operation, calling it "ill-advised and counter-productive." (30)

The DEA and several Hawaiian state agencies launched a showcase effort to eradicate marijuana in Operation Wipeout in November 1990. The effort included spraying herbicides by helicopter. Marijuana became scarce, and prices rose to hundreds of dollars per ounce. According to a NIDA-funded survey conducted by Patricia Morgan (a professor of public health at UC Berkeley) and Karen Joe (U. Hawaii), the scarcity of cannabis caused "significant numbers" of people to switch from marijuana to "ice", an extremely dangerous form of methedrine. Morgan said:

"A lot of people see ice as a substitute for marijuana here. This really mirrors the kind of responses we got. This is typical -- not atypical -- for locals."

The pattern matches that established in California in the mid-1980s, when researchers noted an increase in cocaine use after CAMP was established. Donald Topping, director of the Social Science Research institute (U. Hawaii), said:

"The government appears to have eliminated a relatively harmless substance and are pushing kids in the direction of a more harmful substance. I think the state needs to look at the repercussions of the success in the eradication programs. In my mind the evidence is so clear that the escalation in the price of marijuana has encouraged young people in particular to turn to less expensive mind-altering substances." (31)

The biggest hashish bust in history occurred on July 1, 1991 when the navy destroyer Ingersol intercepted the freighter Lucky Star near Midway Island in a joint effort by the US Customs Service, Coast Guard, and navy. Over 100 tons of Pakistani hashish was found. Federal officials estimated its value at $1.2 billion. The previous record haul was 43 tons by authorities in San Francisco in 1986. (32)

In a 1983 report, Government Accounting Office (GAO) auditors decried the unreliable accuracy of statistics on seizures used by law enforcement agencies to gauge their drug interdiction efforts:

"No one has comprehensive information on what is seized or what happens to interdiction arrestees. Without such data, we question how agency managers can make decisions on interdiction."

The GAO recommended that the DEA, Customs Service, and Coast Guard "develop a reliable information base for evaluating the effectiveness of interdiction program components." The GAO estimated that in 1981, the Customs Service overstated by 52% the amount of drugs it actually seized. Not until 1987 did the several agencies begin to assign identification numbers to the loads of drugs seized to ensure that the load is counted only once. (33)

The GAO summarized 17 years of studying the drug war in a 1988 report to Congress:,"Since our current approach is not working, it is time to consider devoting more emphasis aimed at reducing demand: prevention, treatment and research on the causes and extent of drug abuse."

The GAO also observed that the drug war had no leader. Instead, a patchwork of 37 federal agencies attacked the problem without concert, and fought each other in bureaucratic turf wars.

The GAO's comptroller general, Charles Bowsher concluded: "We lack a cohesive federal anti-drug policy and strategy. The time has come to assign the authority and responsibility for planning and coordinating federal anti-drug efforts to a single individual."

President Reagan vetoed a Congressional plan to establish an American drug lord, but compromised by establishing a cabinet-level National Drug Control Policy Board. It was chaired by the US attorney general, the CIA director, and heads of the departments of Defense, State, Treasury and Health. The Board issued a report in January 1987, calling for a fight against drug supply and demand. In its report to Congress, the GAO described the paper as "primarily a description of existing drug enforcement strategies and activities" rather than a plan of operations. The affecting agency budgets and programs necessary to bring cohesion to federal drug control efforts." The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 created a Director of National Drug Control Policy, or "drug czar", which allowed the likes of Carlton Turner and William Bennett, et al., to come into unqualified prominence as babbling heads of the federal Hydra. (34)

The National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) in Johnstown PA opened for business in June 1993 for the purpose of consolidating the drug intelligence generated by 19 different agencies. According to a critical report issued by the GAO, the $50 million facility is redundant and is a pork barrel project placed in the hometown of Senator John Murtha. The operations managers are located in Washington DC because Johnstown is too far away from the decision-making center to be practical. The NDIC duplicates much of the work also done at the El Paso Intelligence Center, established in 1974 with DEA funds and operated by representatives of 13 federal agencies with agreements with all 50 states. (35)

(10)  Mandatory Minimum Sentences

Congress passed a series of crime and drug bills in the 1980s, imposing severe mandatory minimum sentences that soon caused a tripling of the nation's prison capacity and population. By March 2000, the number of prisoners in the USA totaled 2,000,000. The new laws also caused drastic changes in police work, lawyering, prosecution, prison standards, the judiciary, legislative intent, correctional theory, and public attitudes about drugs and law. In 1963, a commission established under Attorney General Robert kennedy and President John Kennedy had urged for repeal of the mandatory sentences imposed by the Boggs Act and others in the 1950s. Their report cited several negative effects that are painfully apparent today: "prison crowding, outrageous prosecution, lack of judicial latitude, and an unchecked rise in violent crimes."

In 1970, Congress repealed all mandatory sentences and restored the function of judicial discretion. But before long, the recidivist Congress indulged in mass stupidity again and repeated its own recent history. The Anti-Crime Bill of 1982 allowed judges to fine drug offenders up to twice their profits, and allowed the government to forfeit property in all felony drug cases. A fund was established with forfeiture proceeds to be used for further enforcement of drug laws. Each election year thereafter, the law was toughened up. The Crime Control Act of 1984 established a presumption of no bail for defendants charged with major drug offenses. Forfeiture powers were increased: up to $100,000 of goods could be taken without full-scale court proceedings.

The Anti-Drug Act of 1986 established fines of up to $4 million, and mandated minimum sentences of at least 10 years for those convicted of major drug crimes. The government assumed still more power to seize and forfeit assets, including substitute assets if the illegally gained assets were inaccessible. The Anti-Drug Act of 1988 declared the absurd and impossible goal of a "drug-free America" and set 1995 as the target date for its accomplishment. The act also allowed the death penalty for murders committed in the course of a drug-related felony. The Crime Control Act of 1990 was more of the same. The 1990 Transportation Appropriations Bill required states to pass laws revoking (for 6 months) the drivers' licenses of persons convicted of drug offenses, or else lose millions of dollars in federal highway funds. On June 27, 1991, the US Supreme Court called drug trafficking a grave threat to society, and ruled that states may impose a life sentence without parole for defendants convicted for possession of large amounts of drugs. (36)

One week after college basketball star Len bias died from a cocaine overdose in 1986, House Speaker Tip O'Neill ordered the House crime subcommittee to draft a tough new drug law that included longer mandatory minimum sentences. Eric Sterling, counsel to the crime subcommittee, later said:

"There was political panic and haste. We wrote the mandatory minimum sentencing law in about three days. There was no time for the usual review by criminologists, judges and law professors. We never really thought through what we were doing. At their root, mandatory minimums are a legislative statement that judges are incompetent and can't be trusted to know a major drug trafficker from a minor criminal. Mandatory mimimums are unjust!"

Judge Oscar Spicer compared the legislative atmosphere "to 1722, when the English Parliament, during a crime epidemic, unanimously passed legislation making any crime punishable by death." Many judges criticized the laws as "unjust and harsh" and appealed to Congress to "reconsider the wisdom of all mandatory minimum sentencing statutes." Analysts have repeatedly shown that mandatory minimums actually help violent criminals because they are freed from jail early to make room for non-violent drug offenders. From 1950 to 1990, the average time served for al serious non-drug crimes fell by 65% while drug sentencing rose sharply. In 1970, about 16% of the federal prisoners were drug offenders. By 1994 the proportion rose to 62%; by 1997 it reached 72%. The national prison population has nearly tripled since 1982, without achieving significant reduction in drug availability. The US prison population passed the 2,000,000 mark early in 2000.

San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey despaired: "Drug dealers and users have consumed the single most valuable resource in the criminal justice system: jail cells. We desperately need the limited space in our nation's jails and prisons to house violent offenders, not minor league dope addicts and dealers."

Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University's National Law Center, studied the effects of the drug war and claimed that it is fueling a major crisis in the prison system, but having little effect on the drug problem:

"There is no indication at all that the drug laws are having any impact on the streets of America. They are having a great effect on the re-election of politicians. This is one big scam played on the American people." (37, 38)

The injustice created by mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenses has moved nearly a hundred senior federal judges to refuse to hear such cases, and many other justices have retired prematurely for the same reason. When judge Jack Weinstein (NY) announced his decision, he wrote: "I simply cannot sentence another impoverished person whose destruction has no discernable effect on the drug trade."

The modern legislative form of "Reefer Madness" has caused tragedies far worse than any of the fantastic marijuana gore stories of the 1930s. In one extreme case among many, Mark Young merely introduced two marijuana dealers in Indianapolis who later did business together, were arrested, and cooperated with the government. They implicated Young, who subsequently received a life sentence without possibility of parole in February 1992. Speaking about his prosecutors in an interview, Young said:

"Someone who'd do what they're doing is capable of anything! They've only proved I'm capable if smoking a joint, or of introducing a guy to another guy who needs some pounds. That's the most they've proved me capable of. What they're doing, they're destroying these families and passing out life sentences, taking people's lives, putting children on the street ¾ I mean horrendous acts. I don't know of anyone that would do anything that malicious for a salary." (39)

Hundreds of similar instances of gross injustice have occurred since then. The case of Jim Montgomery, who smoked marijuana to relieve his muscle spasms, is utterly inhumane. He was convicted by a jury that sentenced him to life imprisonment plus 16 years. The judge later reduced the sentence to 10 years. He was released on appeal bond after nearly a year in a prison hospital, where he developed a life-threatening infection. Montgomery said: "I'll never go back to that prison. I'ld rather put a bullet in my head."

The government also tried to forfeit Montgomery's home, which he shared with his widowed mother.

Leland James of Oklahoma City received two life sentences, plus 10 years, for having bought 50 pounds of marijuana from narcotics officers in a "reverse sting".

(11)  Forfeiture & Informants

Law enforcement officials have long been able to punish convicted criminals by confiscating their property, but it was not until 1984 that Congress authorized forfeiture without first charging the individual with a crime. The drug law provisions that allow seizure and forfeiture of cash and assets have been a goldmine for lawmen, but a nightmare for thousands of victims in civil rights abuses, particularly of the Fifth Amendment (the right to due process) and the Eighth Amendment (against excessive punishment). Asset forfeiture and cash seizures make a mockery and travesty of those rights and others, and provide ample opportunity for corruption. The DEA has contended that 80% of people whose property is seized by the DEA do not contest the action, thus "proving" that most of the assets appropriated are the fruits of criminal labor Critics say that it only goes to show how difficult it is to recover property from the government. In fact, no criminal charges are filed in more than half of federal forfeiture cases. Rather, the primary purpose of the laws --  to inflict suffering on drug dealers -- becomes secondary to revenue collection for the agencies involved. California Deputy Attorney General Gary Schons commented:

"Focusing on the revenues has distorted the whole system; there's no question about it. What happened is that the money has acted like a drug and these agencies have become addicted."

Schons blamed the addiction on the "reluctance of city and county governments to give law enforcement money because they know police agencies have access to forfeiture funds. Basically they're saying you ¾ the police agencies ¾ have to go out and generate your own revenues." (41)

One notably gross abuse occurred in New Jersey in 1991 when Salem County prosecutor Frank Hoerst III quit his post amidst charges that he stole approximately $15,000 from a law enforcement fund of forfeited drug money and property. Among his indulgences, Hoerst purchased a $5,000 car stereo system. The Hoerst case is but one of many such instances. Other common abuses involve a legal 'shakedown" where defendants buy their cars back from prosecutors. Civil forfeiture actions deprive suspects of their possessions while their trials are pending, robbing them of their defense funds or vehicles needed to hold legitimate jobs. Some defendants decline to contest civil forfeitures because one cannot plead the Fifth Amendment in a civil case, and the civil testimony could damage the criminal case. (42)

An extreme case occurred when the motor yacht Ark Royal, valued at $25 million, was seized when the Coast Guard found ten marijuana seeds and two stems aboard the ship. Prompted by public criticism, the ship was returned after the owner paid $1,500 in fines. The 90-foot Lorraine Carol and its cargo (11 tons of scallops) was seized by the Coast Guard in may 1988 when part of a marijuana cigarette and a few seeds were found in the crew's quarters. The felony charges against the ship's owner were later dropped, but the experience cost him $20,000 in legal fees, $80,000 in lost income, and a $250 fine. About $2 billion worth of cash and property is seized each year in the USA. (43, 44)

The drug laws have created a growth industry of "Confidential informants". For example, Sheriff Gene Taylor of Anderson County (SC) encouraged residents to buy illicit drugs to set up dealers, and he promised to pay them up to 25% of any money or assets seized in the arrest. The sheriff bought billboards advertising: "Need Money? Turn in a Dope Dealer". Anderson said:
"I want people to realize they can make really good money, depending on how much they cooperate." (45)

Informing has become a mass occupation that manufactures crime and lies in order to sell the product. Entire cases are based on the substantiated assertions of informants, sometimes with tragic results. In one case, federal authorities made a rare public apology, 18 months after shooting Donald Carlson, a 41-year old computer company executive. In August 1992, he awoke near midnight at the sound of violent banging on his door. The intruders would not identify themselves, so Carlson called the police. Then he fired two warning shots. The agents battered down the door, threw in a stun grenade, shot him, and shot him twice again as he lay disarmed on the floor. No drugs were found. Authorities said that an informant "told wild tales about heavily-armed South American drug traffickers using Carlson's home in suburban Poway as a cocaine warehouse." The informant was charged with lying to agents. (46)

Hired informants often commit crimes to maintain their covers, and they can be granted immunity if caught. For example, according to William Moore, former US attorney for the Southern District of Georgia:

"A couple of years ago we busted a guy for importing large amounts of drugs who started screaming that he was a DEA informant working for an agent in California. We called his agent, who confirmed the guy was an informant but was not supposed to be working on anything in Georgia. There's no doubt the guy was working both sides but we ended up letting him go because he was an informant." (47)

Michael Hauptman, president of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stated:

"I have had a police officer admit to me that she and other officers fabricate the existence of Confidential Informants just to obtain search warrants. And they get away with it. Unless the government agrees that the CI is presently party to the crime, judges almost never make the authorities reveal the CI's identity."

(12)  Drug Testing ~

Between 1982 and 1988, the percentage of American companies that tested employees for drug use increased from 5% to nearly 30%. In 1986, President Reagan's Commission on Organized Crime recommended that the president should direct all federal agencies to draft explicit statements of drug policy, implement guidelines, and establish suitable drug testing programs. State and local governments and business leaders were urged to adopt and support the official policy, that any and all use of drugs in the workplace is unacceptable.

In September 1986, President Reagan signed Executive Order No. 12,564 mandating a drug-free workplace along with passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act. In June 1987, he was further gratified by the enactment of Public Law 100-71, Section 503, Title V, which permits the government to test federal employees for drugs. The Department of Health and Human Services issued the mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs: Final Guidelines in 1988 to apply to all federal agencies and to serve as a model for private industry. All the programs test urine for marijuana and cocaine, and optionally, for opiates, amphetamines, PCP, and other substances, but not alcohol. The tests are used randomly, to test for cause of accidents, or in pre-employment screening of job applicants.

The results are fraught with technical difficulties, and the tests often are inaccurate, giving rise to false positive results that have cost many innocent persons their jobs. For example, the common drug Ibuprofen gives a positive response to the test for marijuana. Other adulterants in the urine sample, such as vinegar, slat or chlorine bleach, may yield false negative results.
 The program has given rise to fraudulent tests, such as were conducted by the Pretrial Services Agency in Washington DC. Employees there sold defendants "clean urine" either by changing the paperwork involved in the drug testing, or by having the defendant's escort (assigned to collect the urine sample) provide the "clean" tinkle. In another case, an 1992 audit of the employee drug-testing program at the Department of the Interior inaccurate reporting of results, destruction of records, widespread mismanagement, and 450 urine samples that were improperly labeled or had damaged seals. They were tested anyway and the results were considered valid.

(13)  Drug Tax Stamp Acts

As if to complete and repeat the vicious cycle of America's drug law dilemma, beginning with the Marihuana Tax Act in 1937, and again with Indiana's Narcotic Tax Stamp in 1969, some 30 states passed various forms of an Illegal Drug Tax Stamp to be levied against dealers. Even if acquitted of criminal charges, the dealers could be charged with tax evasion, and their property forfeited. Most of the stamp sales were made to philatelists. In June 1974, the US Supreme Court struck down the marijuana tax laws because they comprised double jeopardy. Justice Paul Stevens said:

"Taken as a whole, this drug tax [Montana's Dangerous Drug Tax Act of 1987] is a concoction o anomalies, too far-removed in crucial respects from a standard tax assessment to escape characterization as a punishment for the purpose of double jeopardy analysis. The marijuana tax is not analogous to taxes on cigarettes or alcohol. The government allows the manufacture and sale of cigarettes because the harm is outweighed by the benefits, such as creating employment, satisfying consumer demand and providing tax revenues.

"These justifications vanish when the taxed activity is completely forbidden, for the legitimate revenue raising purpose that might support such a tax could be equally well served by increasing the fine imposed upon conviction… [The marijuana tax is questionable] because it was levied on goods already destroyed. The state presumably destroyed the contraband goods in this case before the tax on them was assessed. A tax on possession of goods that no longer exist and that the taxpayer never lawfully possessed has an unmistakable punitive character."

Dissenting Judge Rehnquist wrote: "The court's decision drastically alters existing law by subjecting taxes to the double-jeopardy clause. Moreover, it is clear from the structure and purpose of the act that it was passed for the legitimate purpose of raising revenue from the profitable underground drug business." (49)

Would that the same standards were applied to the marijuana Tax Act of 1937!

(14)  References ~

1. Mezzrow, M. & Wolfe, B.: Really the Blues; 1946, Random House, NY.
2. Sloman, Larry: The History of Marijuana in America: Reefer Madness; 1979, Grove Press, Inc, NY.
3. Rolling Stone (August 1983)
4. Newsweek (16 October 1942
5. Sackett & Hobbs: Hemp: A War Crop; 1942, Mason & Hanger Co., NY
6. High Times (October 1989)
7. Herer, Jack: Hemp and the Marijuana Conspiracy: The Emperor Wears No Clothes; 1985, HEMP Publishing, Van Nuys CA.
8. Business Week (22 January 1944), p. 42
9. Barash, Luci: "A Review of Hemp Cultivation in Canada"; J. International Hemp Association 1(1): 25 (1994).
10. Congressional Record, 97th  Congress (1951), p. 8209.
11. Kefauver Committee Hearings, part 14, p. 119.
12. US Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means Hearings on H.R. 3490, 82nd Congress, 1st Session, 1951, p. 206.
13. Congressional Record, 97th Congress, 1951, p. 8197.
14. Washington Post (24 February 1970), D-1, c.3.
15. Proceedings: White House Conference on Narcotic and Drug Abuse (27-28 September 1962); 1963, GPO, Washington DC.
16. Narcotics Control Digest (18 December 1974).
17. San Francisco Chronicle (17 December 1976)
18. U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws; 94th Congress, 1st Session, 1975.
19. Report of the National Commission on Marihuana & Drug Abuse: Marihuana: Signal of Misunderstanding; 1972, US GPO, Washington DC.
20. Schroeder, Richard C.: The Politics of Drugs: An American Dilemma; 1980, Congressional Quarterly, Inc.
21. Epstein, Edward J.: Agency of Fear: Opiates and Political Power in America; 1977, G.P. Putnams's Sons.
22. San Francisco Chronicle (28 November 1988)
23. Landrigan, P., et al.: American J. of Public Health 73 (7): 784-788 (July 1983).
24. NewsBank XV (1984): INT 63: C-14.
25. ibid., XXI (1990): LAW 82: F-3.
26. ibid, XVII (1986): LAW 91: D-3.
27. ibid, XIX (1988): LAW 79: B-10.
28. ibid, XVII (1986): LAW 91: D-9; San Jose (CA) Mercury News (31 October 1986)
29. ibid, XIX (1988): LAW 106: D-13
30. ibid, XXI (1990): LAW 83: F-11
31. ibid, XXV (1994): LAW 32: B-4
32. ibid, XXII (1992): LAW 93: A-10
33. ibid, XIX (1988): LAW 106: F-4
34. ibid, XIX (1988): LAW 106: F-7
35. ibid, XXIV (1993): LAW 56: F-2
36. ibid, XXII (1991): LAW 40: D-12; ibid, LAW 81: D-1
37. Monterey Coast Weekly (CA) (30 June 1994)
38. NewsBank XXI (1191): LAW 81: D-1
39. Schloser, Eric: "Reefer Madness"; Atlantic Monthly (August 1994), pp. 45-63; ibid, (September 1994), pp. 84-92.
40. NewsBank XXV (1994): LAW 39: B-6
41. ibid, XXIII (1992): LAW 12: A-13; San Diego Union (12 February 1992)
42. ibid, XXI (1990): LAW 57: D-9
43. ibid, XXI (1990): LAW 40: C-14
44. ibid, XXIV (1993): LAW 56: E-9
45. ibid, XXII (1991): LAW 40: A-9
46. ibid, XXIV (1993): LAW 17: A-6
47. Curriden, Mark: "Rising Use of Police Snitches Questioned"; Atlanta Journal (GA),(31 March 1991)
48. Associated Press (21 November 1992)
49. NewsBank XVIII (1987): LAW 7: C-14; ibid, XXIV (1993): LAW 56: G-1; ibid, XXV (1194): LAW 44: F-5.

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