MarijuanaNews.com : Program Notes for the MarijuanaNews World Report for April 25, 2005 Prison Population Soars. Kids Abuse Pharmaceuticals. Feds Will Use SF Club Info. Bush Fails On Border. Russell Crow Defends Corby.

Posted April 26, 2005
Analysis by Richard Cowan
See

The MarijuanaNews World Report for April 25, 2005

Full program headline: US Prison Population Soars –
Again. Pharmaceutical Funded Prohibitionists Find Kids Abusing Pharmaceuticals.
Oops! Feds Will Use SF Medical Cannabis Club Registry. Of course! Bush Fails To
Fund Border Defenses. Russell Crow Calls On Australian PM To Defend Woman Facing
Indonesian Firing Squad For Cannabis.

The Land of the Free is still #1, at least in prison
population!
See

Program Notes for Pot-TV’s The MarijuanaNews World Report for April 12, 2005 The
New York Times Discovers Mexico… Drug Czar Pushes Reefer Madness As Teen Meth
Use Surges. Texas and Canadian Prisons
and

Abuse In Prisons: Iraqi and American. Bush says, “That is not the way we do
things in America.” No, That Is Exactly The Way We Do Things in America!
Especially In Texas and Florida.

The US prison population grew at a rate of about 900
inmates each week between mid-2003 and mid-2004.

According to the latest figures from the

Bureau of Justice Statistics, American prisons and jails held 2.1 million
people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents.

By last June 30, there were 48,000 more inmates, or 2.3
percent, more than the year before.

The total inmate population has hovered around 2 million
for the past few years even though the crime rate has fallen over the past
decade, and the number of admissions to federal prisons in 2004 exceeded
releases by more than 8,000.

Malcolm Young, executive director of the

Sentencing Project, said many of those incarcerated are not serious or
violent offenders, but are low-level drug offenders.

According to the

Justice Policy Institute, a sentencing reform group, the United States has a
higher rate of incarceration than any other country, followed by Britain, China,
France, Japan and Nigeria.
See

Prohibition and The Prison State. “Protecting” Youth and Minorities. In DEAland,
The UK and France Prisons Are Full.

There were 726 inmates for every 100,000 U.S. residents
by June 30, 2004, compared with 716 a year earlier, according to the report by
the Justice Department agency. In 2004, one in every 138 U.S. residents was in
prison or jail; the previous year it was one in every 140.

That is about 5 times the Canadian rate. Do Canadian
conservatives really want that?
See

Would BC Have Less Bud if It Had More Prisoners? Lying to Canadians To Support
the Cannabis Prohibition.

In 2004, 61 percent of prison
and jail inmates were of racial or ethnic minorities. An estimated 12.6 percent
of all black men in their late 20s were in jails or prisons, as were 3.6 percent
of Hispanic men and 1.7 percent of white men in that age group, the report said.

There is more to the problem
than prison population numbers.
See

The Patriot Act Hits A New Low As The Prison/Probation/Parole Population Hits A
New High.
and

NORML Reports Marijuana Arrests For 2002 Near Record High “Pot Smokers Arrested
In America At A Rate Of One Every 45 Seconds” Plus Analysis by Richard Cowan.

and
Are people really being
arrested for marijuana possession? What happens when someone is arrested?

And what good is the drugwar doing? Well, it is
increasing pharmaceutical sales.

A study by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America
says
that about one in five teenagers have tried prescription painkillers such as Vicodin and OxyContin to get high, with the pill-popping members of
”Generation Rx” often raiding their parents’
medicine cabinets.

The Partnership was launched
by James Burke, the former CEO of Johnson and Johnson.
From 1997 see

Deadly Drug Sold by Founder of Partnership for A Drug-Free America, Says Forbes

The 17th annual study on teen “drug abuse”, released
Thursday, found that more teens had abused a prescription painkiller in 2004
than Ecstasy, cocaine, crack or LSD. One in 11 teens had abused over-the-counter
products such as cough medicine, the study reported.
See

The Spin Is Beginning To Wobble On The “Latest Teen Drug Use” Survey. Czar Is
“Greatly Encouraged” By Poll Showing Heroin Use By 12th Graders At All Time
High.

”For the first time, our national study finds that
today’s teens are more likely to have abused a
prescription painkiller to get high than they are to have experimented with a
variety of illegal drugs,” said Partnership Chairman Roy Bostock. “In
other words, Generation Rx has arrived.”

According to the study, the
most popular prescription drug abused by teens was Vicodin, with 18 percent –
or about 4.3 million youths — reporting they had used it to get high. OxyContin
and drugs for attention-deficit disorder such as Ritalin/Adderall followed with
one in 10 teens reporting they had tried them.

Most vicodin pills have at
least half a gram of acetaminophen (Tylenol) which can cause kidney and liver
failure.

Fewer than half the teens — 48 percent — said they saw
”great risk” in experimenting with prescription medicines. ”Ease of access”
was cited as a major factor in trying the medications, with medicine cabinets at
home or at friends’ homes a likely source, the survey found.

It was only the second year
that the survey had studied abuse of legal drugs. In 2003, the
Partnership grouped together three prescription pain relievers: Vicodin,
OxyContin and Tylox, and found that 20 percent of teens had tried them.

The 2004 study looked at Vicodin and OxyContin separately but excluded Tylox,
which is Tylenol (Acetaminophen) and Oxycodone hydrochloride, and is made by
McNeil Pharmaceutical, which is owned by J&J, of which James Burke was CEO.
What a coincidence??

Also 18 percent had tried Vicodin and 10 percent had
used OxyContin!

For the first time, the 2004 survey included a question
about the use of over-the-counter products to get high. Nine percent, or about
2.2 million teens, had experimented with cough
syrup and other such products, the survey reported.
See

“No Medicine Is Smoked.” Okay, But Why Isn’t Cannabis Sold Over-the-Counter? New
MAPS/NORML Vaporizer Study Undermines Key Part Of Prohibitionist Party Line On
“Smoked-Marijuana.”

It also found that the number of teens reporting
marijuana use declined to 37 percent last year, compared with 42 percent a
half-dozen years earlier.

Over the same amount of time, Ecstasy use declined from
12 percent to 9 percent, while methamphetamine use
dropped from 12 percent to 8 percent.
See

Marijuana Bigger Problem Than Meth? DEAland And The Bush Administration Have a
Very Serious Walters Problem. We Couldn’t Make This Up!

The 2004 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study surveyed
more than 7,300 teens. Its margin of error is plus or
minus 1.5 percentage points.
See

PDFA’s Propaganda Released On the Internet
Hides Margin Of Error That Makes Headline Meaningless

Excerpt from Medical marijuana catch-22 for San
Francisco
Proposed rules could unintentionally assist federal
prosecution
By Wyatt Buchanan, SF Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom last week proposed a
number of regulations he would like the Board of Supervisors to impose on
medical marijuana clubs in the city, which now number 43.

Federal drug agents who want to
crack down on marijuana use in San Francisco, medical or otherwise, say the
city’s plan to regulate the drug may give law enforcement what it needs to do
its job: a paper trail.

“Yes, we can subpoena documents,” said Lawrence Mendosa,
assistant special agent in charge for the San Francisco Field Division of the
Drug Enforcement Administration.
See

The Police Fraud. Someone Is Lying. Marking The 30th Anniversary Of An Article
in National Review. What if Don Quixote Was Right? Analysis by Richard

Those documents would assist federal agents in mapping
the infrastructure of the marijuana distribution system in the city, he said.

The DEA says its mission is to stop the sale, use,
possession and cultivation of illegal substances Northern California — and
marijuana is second on its priority list, after
methamphetamine.

Yesterday, former San Francisco DA Terrence Hallinan,
who is now in private practice was at the hearings and said that he would
recommend that his clients not sign anything that would incriminate them, of
course.
See

San Francisco District Attorney Attends NORML Fundraiser,
Promises To Testify For Defense In Sonoma Medical Marijuana Grower’s Case
– Special To MarijuanaNews

Meanwhile,

Americans for Safe Access has filed a lawsuit against the city of Fresno for
enacting a ban on medical cannabis dispensaries. The lead plaintiff, William
McPike, is suing Fresno with Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a medical
marijuana organization concerned with what they contend are the illegal
permanent bans passed by Fresno and 3 other California municipalities.

The basis of the lawsuit is that Fresno is in
violation of SB 420, which the California legislature passed into law in 2003 in
order to clarify the Compassionate Use Act (CUA), noting that uncertainties in
the act have prevented qualified patients and primary caregivers from obtaining
the protections afforded by the act. According to the ASA lawsuit, cities and
counties are compelled by SB 420 to implement ways in which qualified patients
and designated primary caregivers can obtain the full protections afforded by
the act.

The MarijuanaNews World Report has reported frequently
on the chaotic state of affairs on the US/Mexico border, and the demagoguery of
prohibitionist politicians who want more resources devoted to the Canadian
border.

The budget that President Bush recently submitted to
Congress contains funding for the hiring of only 210 new border agents next year
– and none of them are headed for duty along the Canada-U.S. boundary.

“Those 210 agents will most likely be placed on the
southern border this year,” said Jeffrey Benadum, a spokesman for the U.S.
Border Patrol in Washington.

The Intelligence Reform and Prevention of Terrorism Act,
signed into law by Bush, requires the hiring “of not
less than 2,000″ full-time agents each year from 2006 to 2010. The bill also
states that 20 per cent — or 400 — of the new agents hired each year were to
be assigned to the Canada-U.S. boundary.

About 1,000 border patrol agents are currently assigned
to the Canadian border. That’s double the number stationed on the northern
border before 9/11. But at any given time, only about 250 are on duty.

Of more than 1.16 million
people detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents in 2004, only 9,959 were caught
trying to enter the country illegally from Canada.
See

Front Page Fantasy: The New York Times Pushes Fact Free Journalism Supposedly
About “BC Bud”
and

Time Magazine Reports BC Bud 20% Less Potent Than Four Years Ago?? Incompetent
Prohibitionist Propaganda and Even Worse Journalism. As Some Reporters Die to
Find the Truth Others Live to Lie.
and

How Marijuana Prohibition Really Works on the Texas/Mexico Border. Contrast with
the Situation at the Canadian Border. Great Journalism.

Recent U.S. government investigations found severe flaws in the
Border Patrol’s Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System, a critical network
of cameras and sensors along the Mexican and Canadian borders.

Investigators found that many of the high-tech cameras
along the border between Washington state and British Columbia were so poorly
wired that they were virtually useless, even in warm weather.

Meanwhile prohibitionist propaganda has consequences:

As Renee Boje reported in last month’s CC Schapelle
Corby - 27-year-old Australian woman is facing a firing-squad sentence in
Indonesia for smuggling marijuana she claims was planted in her luggage.

Corby’s plight has attracted support from Hollywood
actor Russell Crowe, who says he was heartbroken by the sight of her tears on
Australian newspaper front pages.

Oscar-winning actor Crowe took Prime Minister John
Howard to task for not doing more to save Corby.

“The photographs of Schapelle Corby broke my heart,” he
said.

“The first thing I thought this morning was, like, how
can I get Johnny Howard on the phone and say ‘Look, what are you gonna do, mate,
what are you gonna do? - that’s ridiculous, what if it was your daughter?’”

Of course, the Australian government is so into reefer
madness that it cannot address the absurd injustice of laws that punish
marijuana possession as a major crime.
See

Australian Magazine Analyzes Drug War Prohibitionist Propaganda Including Its
DEAland Sponsors: “Figures show that by far, the bulk of the money spent and
resources allocated by law enforcement agencies is being used to get “tough on
marijuana”, arguably the least ‘dangerous’ of all illicit drugs.” Of 85,046 Drug
Related Offences In Australia From 1996 - 1997 — 69,136 Were For Cannabis.