MarijuanaNews.com : 2000- A Year in the Life of Marijuana Prohibition — By Kevin Christopher Nelson

Posted January 2, 2001
Special to MarijuanaNews
(MarijuanaNews note: Once again I am indebted to my friend Kevin
Nelson for a very useful review of a remarkable year.)

2000- A Year in the Life of Marijuana Prohibition
By Kevin Christopher Nelson
Nelson kcnelson@premier1.net is a writer living
in Bellingham, WA.
See
A Year in the
Life of Marijuana Prohibition — 1998
A Chronology By Kevin Nelson
and
Drug War Prison
Bonanza - By Kevin Nelson — Outstanding Report!

“One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces
is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one
ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana
never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and
dying people, does not suppress medical

research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer
madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done
far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.” –Richard Cowan
From Buckley
Writes On McWilliams And Kubby Cases; Great Ending, If I May Say So

Estimated U.S. deaths in year 2000 attributed to: tobacco: 430,000; alcohol:
125,000; prescription drugs: 100,000; aspirin: 2,000; marijuana: 0

Number of Americans arrested since 1970 on marijuana-related charges: over 13
million

January 12, 2000- Los Angeles, CA (AP)- The San Diego Tribune reports: The
family of a millionaire shot to death at his Malibu ranch during a controversial 1992 drug
raid that turned up no drugs will get $5 million under a tentative agreement with the
county and federal government. Donald P. Scott’s survivors contended authorities staged
the 1992 raid to seize the secluded $5 million 200-acre ranch under drug forfeiture laws.

Scott, 61, was shot to death by a Los Angeles deputy when he emerged from his bedroom
armed with a pistol, still sleepy and slightly drunk. The shooting was held to be
justifiable since Deputy Gary Spencer was in fear for his life. But Ventura County
District Attorney Michael Bradbury investigated the raid and concluded Spencer used false
information to secure a warrant to search the ranch for marijuana plants. “There was
no marijuana on that place,” Bradbury said. “Clearly one of the primary purposes
was a land grab by the (Los Angeles County) Sheriff’s Department.” Officials deny
those charges, but said they agreed to settle a civil rights lawsuit filed by Scott’s
family because they feared jurors would not believe government agents.

The plaintiffs - Scott’s wife Frances, four children and his estate – will split the
proceeds in a formula yet to be determined. Lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. said his client,
Mrs. Scott, who saw her husband killed and later lost her home to a fire, now lives in
“a teepee” on the property and is trying to hold off government claims to seize
it for unpaid taxes.

January 18- Atlanta, GA (AP) – Louis E. Covar Jr., 51, a quadriplegic,
paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident on July 4, 1967, who says he uses
marijuana to relieve the pain from muscle spasms in his neck, is sentenced to seven years
in prison after being accused of selling marijuana out of his home. Judge J. Carlisle
Overstreet sent Covar to prison after investigators found about 1¼ ounces of marijuana in
his home. “We feel strongly he was selling out of his house,” Richmond County DA
Danny Craig said. Covar denied the charges, insisting the small amount was for his
personal medicinal use.

According to the Department of Corrections, the special care Covar will need
will cost $258.33 a day- or more than $660,000 if he serves his full seven years. A
typical prisoner costs taxpayers $47.63 per day.

February 9- Arizona- Deborah Lynn Quinn, 39, born with no arms or legs, is
sentenced to one year in an Arizona prison for marijuana possession, violating probation
on a previous drug offense- attempted sale of 4 grams of marijuana to a police informant
for $20. Quinn will require around the clock care for feeding, bathing, and hygiene.

Terry L. Stewart, Arizona Corrections Director, expressed his frustration:
“I simply cannot understand how a judge can sentence a disabled woman to prison who
presents absolutely no escape risk, no physical danger to the public, and who will be an
extremely difficult and expensive person to care for ($345/day), without exploring any
alternative sentence measures such as intensive probation.”

February 15- The United States’ prison and jail population surpasses two
million people. Prisons are one of the fastest-growing expenses of government, costing
about $100,000 to build a single prison cell and about $24,000 per year for each prisoner.
1.3 million US inmates are currently serving time for “non-violent offenses.”
One-quarter of the world’s prisoners are now incarcerated in the “land of the
free.”

February 17- Vancouver, WA- George Ives is a 40 year-old disabled veteran,
suffering from strokes, high blood pressure, and degenerative disc disease. His wife
Georgia suffers from grand mal seizures. Neither of them has any criminal history. On
February 17th, Clark/Scamania County Drug Task Force, acting on an anonymous
tip, raided their home, breaking down the front door and holding them at gunpoint. Agents
found a total of 70 marijuana plants in a grow operation that George claimed was for
personal medicinal use. Because the only doctor available to them is a federal VA doctor,
the Ives’ were unable to obtain the state required medical note of referral, as
federally paid physicians refuse to participate in I-692, Washington State’s medical
marijuana initiative, for fear of federal reprisal.

February 23- The Hawaii Medical Association comes out formally against the
pending state medical marijuana initiative. Heidi Singh, director of legislative and
government affairs for the Hawaii Medical Association, said more studies should be done on
medical marijuana, and that “physicians cannot in good faith recommend a drug therapy
without clinical evidence to back it up.”

February 28- Madrid, Spain (UPI) The chemical in marijuana that produces a
“high” shows promise as a weapon against deadly brain tumors, say Spanish
researchers in early research. In the study on rats a research team from Complutense
University and Autonoma University in Madrid found that one of marijuana’s active
ingredients, THC, killed tumor cells in advanced cases of glioma, a quick-killing cancer
for which there is currently no effective treatment. Spanish scientists found that THC
pumped into the tumors cleared the cancer in more than a third of the test rats. The drug
also prolonged the life of another third by up to 40 days but was ineffective in the rest.
The cancer did not come back in any of the survivors. Researchers are not sure why, but
Guzman’s team says THC caused a buildup of a fat molecule called ceramide, which provoked
a death spiral in the cancer cells.

March 13- Britain- (AP) Marijuana-like compounds ease tremors in mice with a
condition similar to Multiple Sclerosis, researchers say in a study published in the
British journal Nature, that appears to corroborate patients who say pot helps them deal
with the disease. “This lends credence to the anecdotal reports that some people with
MS have said that cannabis can help control these distressing symptoms,” said Lorna
Layward, one of the study’s authors. Layward heads the research arm of the Multiple
Sclerosis Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

March 13- Mondovi, WI- Jacki Rickert is 49, wheelchair-bound, and weighs 90
pounds. “Though I’ve seen her as low as 76,” her daughter, Tammy, who lives in
Middleton, said Tuesday. Jacki Rickert suffers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and reflexive
sympathetic dystrophy, bone and muscle illnesses that keep her in constant pain and often
unable to eat. She smokes marijuana to ease her pain and allow her to eat. Rickert was the
last patient to miss being accepted into the federal government’s Investigative New
Drug program that presently distributes a tin of 300 pre-rolled marijuana cigarettes to
eight legally-protected American citizens each month.

Mondovi police raided Rickert’s home at 3:30am on March 13th, seized a
small amount of marijuana, and searched her home until 10am. Rickert’s daughter,
Tammy, claims the police raid has left her mother a wreck. “She’s tiny,
frail,” Tammy said. “She’s not out to hurt anybody. She’s trying to
maintain some semblance of a quality of life. The marijuana, which the government pretty
much told her she could use, helps a little. This whole thing is unbelievable.”

March 16- New York City- An unarmed black security guard, Patrick Dorismond,
waiting for a cab with his friend Kevin Kaiser, is shot dead by undercover New York City
police officers conducting a marijuana “buy-and-bust.” Two plainclothes
detectives approached Dorismond asking if he would sell them “some weed.”
Dorismond rebuffed the men, a scuffle ensued, and a third officer, Anthony Vasquez, rushed
in, pulled out his revolver and fired a single bullet into Dorismond’s chest. No
drugs or other contraband were found on Dorismond’s body. The shooting was the third
time in 13 months plainclothes New York City police officers shot and killed an unarmed
black man.

April 1- Canada’s premier national newspaper, The National Post,
editorializes in favor of legalizing marijuana: “Marijuana legalization has long been
the subject of academic debate. The time has come to turn conjecture into law.
Canada’s police, judges and prosecutors have better things to do with their time than
track down those who produce and consume a substance no more dangerous than alcohol and
tobacco. We should begin the decriminalization of marijuana by immediately reducing the
punishments that can be imposed for its possession to modest fines- and start thinking
about how to regulate its use.”

April 12- California- The Santa Cruz City Council unanimously approves an
ordinance making the city the first in the nation to legalize the production and sale of
medical marijuana without a doctor’s prescription, as long as it is sold at cost or
given away.

April 25- Despite the formal opposition of the Hawaiian Catholic Church, the Hawaii State
Senate passes medical marijuana legislation, joining California, Oregon, Washington,
Maine, Alaska, Arizona, and the District of Columbia in shielding medical marijuana
patients from criminal prosecution.

May 6- One hundred cities around the world participate in the Millennium
Marijuana March, calling for the legalization of marijuana for adult personal use. 1,000
people march in New York City, with 312, nearly one-third, arrested by the march’s
end. Under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, New York City marijuana arrests have increased from 720
in 1992, to 59,945 in 2000.

May 11- The West Virginia Supreme Court, voting 4-1, deny a “medical
necessity” defense to Donna Jean Poling, a Multiple Sclerosis patient in the terminal
stages of her illness, who was arrested for growing marijuana in her home. Poling claimed
that marijuana kept her symptom-free for three years preceding her 1998 arrest, after
which her condition worsened dramatically.

June 9- Human Rights Watch releases a study finding that Illinois is the worst
state for racial disparity among jailed drug offenders. Illinois’ black men are 57
times more likely than white men to be sent to prison on drug charges, and blacks comprise
90 percent of all prison admissions in Illinois for drug charges- the highest percentage
in the country. Though federal studies show that white drug users outnumber black drug
users 5-to-1, blacks make up about 62 percent of prisoners incarcerated on drug charges,
compared with 36 percent of whites.

June 14- Los Angeles, CA- Bestselling author, cancer and AIDS patient, and
medical marijuana activist Peter McWilliams dies in his home. McWilliams, barred by a
federal court order from using marijuana to counteract the extreme nausea caused by his
AIDS drugs, was found choked to death on vomit, slumped on his bathroom floor. His federal
prosecutors say they were “saddened by his death.”

McWilliams bestselling books included: How to Heal Depression; Getting Over
the Loss of a Love; Life 101; and, Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do:
The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes In a Free Society.
See
The Murder
of Peter McWilliams — An Indictment, Not an Obituary – by Richard Cowan

July 31- Ontario, Canada- Ontario’s top court today ruled unanimously (3-0) that
Canada’s law making marijuana possession a crime is unconstitutional, because it does
not take into account the needs of Canadian medical marijuana patients. The judges allowed
the current law to remain in effect for another 12 months, to permit Parliament to rewrite
it. However, if the Canadian federal government fails to set up a medical marijuana
distribution program by July 31, 2001, there will be no marijuana laws in Canada. The
decision came in the case of Terry Parker, an epileptic who had been denied a federal
medical marijuana exemption. Mr. Parker has been hospitalized over 100 times for injuries
sustained during seizures.

August 4- The USA Today reports: The Department of Justice on Thursday pledged
to continue resisting California’s voter-approved medical marijuana law, arguing the
government has the right to penalize doctors who recommend cannabis by revoking their
licenses to dispense medication. DOJ lawyer Joseph W. Lobue stated the federal government
does not recognize California’s Compassionate Use Act of 1996, which protects medical
marijuana patients from arrest. “It doesn’t matter what California says,” Lobue
said.

August 16– Los Angeles, CA- The American Medical Marijuana Association
reports: Medical marijuana patient, grower, and author of How to Grow Medical
Marijuana, Todd McCormick, confined to federal prison while appealing his case, is
sent to solitary confinement. According to his mother, Ann McCormick, Todd went to the
medical office and requested the synthetic form of marijuana, MarinolÔ
, produced by Unimed Pharmaceuticals, that he had been taking prior to his incarceration.
One day after Todd requested the Schedule 3, easily-prescribed drug, the feds ordered he
be drug tested. When the results came back positive for marijuana, Todd was placed in
solitary confinement.”The pain in his neck and back has been unbearable lately,”
said his worried mother. “Todd has a spinal fusion- the top five vertebrae were fused
when he was two-years-old. A tumor had completely eaten the 2nd vertebrae and
the old fusion is now literally carving grooves in the base of his skull, prompting severe
headaches as well. His left hip stopped growing when he was 9, a result of radiation
treatments for childhood cancer. He has severe scoliosis, nerve damage in his upper back,
shoulders and neck and severe muscle spasms in his lower back. He has received no medical
treatment since January,” said Mrs. McCormick.

August 20- Seattle, WA- An estimated crowd of 100,000 people gather at Myrtle
Edwards Park for Hempfest 2000, calling for the legalization of marijuana for personal and
medical use, as well as legalization of hemp for environmentally-sustainable industrial
uses. The event is the largest of its kind in the world, with no arrests reported.

August 25- Pine Ridge Reservation, SD- A dozen heavily-armed DEA agents staged
a pre-dawn raid on the Ogalala Sioux nation, chopping down and hauling away 2 acres of
industrial hemp (approx. 400,000 plants). Though a number of Sioux stood in the fields
claiming responsibility for the crop, no arrests were made. The Pine Ridge Reservation is
one of the poorest communities in America, with 80% unemployment. The hemp crop, planted
on April 29 and scheduled to be harvested within days, was to provide jobs and cellulostic
building materials for a hemp-concrete housing project on tribal land.

September 9- Santa Fe, NM- Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader joins
New Mexico’s Republican Governor Gary Johnson in criticizing the nation’s war on
drugs, calling for the legalization of marijuana and reform of what Nader calls
“self-defeating and antiquated” drug laws. “Addiction, no matter what kind
of addiction, should not be criminalized,” Nader said at a news conference with
Johnson in Santa Fe. “It’s got to be subjected to health programs and caring
programs, because they work.” Rehabilitating drug addicts gives a far better payoff
than “criminalizing and militarizing the situation,” he said. “Study after
study has shown that, and yet somehow it doesn’t get through to federal policy.”

October 16- U.S. Drug “Czar” Barry McCaffrey announces his
resignation, effective January 6, 2001. (ed note: As of this writing, President-elect Bush
has not appointed a new drug “czar” although Augusto Pinochet and Slobodan
Milosevic are looking for work.)

October 16- The FBI releases its 1999 Uniform Crime Report. There were a record
total of 704,812 U.S. marijuana arrests in 1999, or one every 45 seconds. Of those
arrests: 620,541 (88%) were for simple marijuana possession. 84,271 (12%) were for
sales/cultivation. During the Clinton Administration, there have been a record total of
4,175,357 marijuana arrests, a record for any U.S. presidency.

November 7- Election Day- Voters across the United States pass sweeping drug
law reform initiatives. In California, despite united opposition from Governor Gray Davis,
Attorney General Bill Lockyer, Senator Dianne Feinstein, statewide police associations and
prison guard unions, citizens vote 61-39 to pass Proposition 36, diverting non-violent
drug offenders into treatment rather than prison for first and second offenses. Proponents
claim the move will save the state $150 million annually, and cancel the need for a new
state prison. Mendocino County, CA, voters approve Measure G by a 58-42 margin,
decriminalizing personal use and growth of up to 25 marijuana plants.

Nevadans vote 65-35 to pass Question 9 allowing qualifying patients to possess
marijuana for medicinal purposes. In response, a self-appointed task force of state
healthcare officials, the Nevada Medical Marijuana Initiative Work Group, move to limit
use of the drug to research studies, adding months if not years to approval time. Said
Louis Ling, general counsel for the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy and part of the work
group, “No matter what system gets passed, it’s going to be a good long time before
medical marijuana is available.”

By a 53-47 margin, Colorado voters pass Amendment 20, allowing qualifying patients to
possess up to 2 ounces of marijuana and grow up to 6 plants. Tom Strickland,
U.S. attorney for Colorado, in a statement released on the afternoon of November 7th,
said that his office would continue to “aggressively enforce federal drug laws,
including the prohibition of marijuana, regardless of the passage of this ballot
initiative.”

Utahns, by a margin of 69-31, pass Initiative B, denying government agencies
the right to seize property from individuals before they are convicted of a crime. Salt
Lake County District Attorney Dave Yocom responded “Obviously we’re going to re-think
this and decide whether or not to work to get (the initiative) repealed during the next
legislative session.”

Oregonians pass a similar property seizure reform initiative, Measure 3- the
Oregon Property Protection Act- by a margin of 66-34. Measure 3 diverts drug forfeiture
proceeds from police treasuries into drug treatment programs.

November 27- In the case “U.S. v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’
Cooperative, 00-151,” the U.S. Supreme Court takes on the issue of whether
“medical necessity” is an acceptable defense to the federal law that makes
marijuana distribution a crime. A decision is expected by June 2001.

December 6- Brussels, Belgium- The Liberal Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and
the Brussels coalition of Liberals, Socialists and Greens, vote
to end marijuana prohibition. As of January 1, 2001, Belgium, joining Holland in embracing
tolerance, will “exempt from punishment possession, consumption and trade of up to
five grams hashish or marijuana.” Belgium is the host country and seat of the
European Union.

December 6- In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine released today,
President Bill Clinton was asked if he thought “people should go to jail for using or
even selling small amounts of marijuana?” Clinton replied “I think that most
small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places, and should be.”
Clinton added, “We really need a reexamination of our entire policy on
imprisonment… a lot of people are in prison because they have drug problems or
alcohol problems and too many of them are getting out- particularly out of state systems-
without treatment, without education, without skills, without serious efforts at job
placement.”

(MarijuanaNews note: For more on the Drug War in 2000
See
2000 in Review -
What MAP’s Readers Were Reading The Most