... ... WHIPPED CREAM SNIFFING OUTBREAK ... ...

The things people will do to get high! Supermarkets in Mobile, Alabama have taken cans of whipped cream from display after discovering that local teenagers have been coming into the stores, picking the pressurised cans up from the shelf and sniffing the nitrous oxide (which propels the whipped cream from the aerosol containers) before abandoning the cans as they leave. "We have it in the back at customer request", said one store manager, "We had it on the shelves before, but we really had a bad problem".

Source: Mobile Register 21.6.00

... ... LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR $20 DRUG OFFENSE ... ...

Here's how you get a prison population of 2 million. 41 year old Tyrone L. "Scrap" Taylor received life imprisonment for selling $20 of crack-cocaine to an undercover police officer. This was Taylor's third conviction for selling crack and he came under Delaware's tough "three-strikes and you're out" law and the judge had no choice in handing down a sentence of life without parole. Taylor's lawyer told the judge it was pointless for him to argue against the sentence, which was required by law. But, he said, "It's certainly unfortunate that our law is such that an individual who sells three $20 pieces of crack cocaine over a 15 or 20 year period of his life is required to have a sentence (that is the same as if) he had killed someone. ÒIn a letter to the judge who sentenced him, Taylor, Taylor described himself as "not a drug dealer, but a drug user".

Source: The News journal (DE) 2000

... ... PORTUGAL DECRIMINALISES DRUGS ... ...

In July this year the Portuguese parliament decriminalised the use and possession of illegal drugs such as cannabis and heroin. This brings the number of European countries who have decrimalised consumption and possession of small quantities to three (the other two are Spain and Italy). "The idea is to get away from punishment towards treatment," said a Government spokesman. Under the new law, police will report drug-takers to special commissions that will be responsible for ensuring addicts seek treatment. So much for Tony Blair's recent 'vision' of a "drug free Europe". Or doesn't his idea of Europe include these countries?

... .... DRUGS, CRIME AND POLICE CORRUPTION: 'GROOVY GANG' JAILED ... ...

Another example of the link between drugs and crime came to light when one of Britain's biggest police corruption cases came to a close in August this year. Two DC's with South East Regional Crime Squad (Sercs), part of the self-styled 'groovy gang', were jailed for three-and-a-half years for conspiracy to supply a class B drug. A DS from the same firm got 2 years for committing acts tending or intended to pervert the course of justice. The 3 are the last 3 members of the Sercs to come to trial. Their ringleader, Robert Clark was jailed for 12 years at the Old Bailey in February. His 'enthusiastic' lieutenant, Christopher Drury, was jailed for 11 years. The scale of corruption was only revealed when a dealer called Evelyn Fleckney turned supergrass. Fleckney had become Clark's lover early in the 90s after she was arrested and turned informer. As well as being Clark's lover she also resold drugs the detectives had seized. However, when she got 15 years in 1998 for a separate offense, she decided to tell police about her relationship with Clark and other members of the squad. As the investigation got under way another Sercs officer 'wrestled with his conscience' (i.e. weighed up what he'd get for cooperating) and decided to tell all he knew about corrupt activities. This evidence from DC Putnam became part of the main case against the gang. Putnam got three and a half years and Fleckney four and a half (to run concurrently with her 15 years). So, you see, there is a link between drugs and crime after all. Their illegality and the profits to be made from them mean no one is above temptation.

Source: The Independent 5.8.00

... ... ORDER YOUR DRAW ON THE NET ... ...

A new internet based Dutch Company have launched a Web-based cannabis delivery service in Amsterdam. The company (called 'I Toke) promises to deliver orders in 30 minutes, using fast friendly 'I-Tokerristas, couriers on green and white bikes. They in turn will be supplied by green and white vans ("motherships"). One of its founders promised to make cannabis a respectable product by "repackaging it, by commercialising it, by making it an actual product. For 10 euros per gram, customers will be able to place orders by computer, phone, fax or WAP-enabled wireless phones. Don't bother dialling long distance. No deliveries in Britain!

Source: San Francisco Chronicle 31.8.00

... ... 'DON'T PISS TEST US FOOL' - UK CABINET TELLS DRUG TSAR - 'PISS TEST THEM!' ... ...

Poor old Keith Hellawell, Britain's Drug Tsar made another of his famous gaffes the other week. Interviewed by the Sunday Times newspaper about his plans to turn the country into a giant piss testing lab, he got really carried away. Forecasting piss tests for all, he went on to say that Cabinet ministers should be subject to random drug testing. Oh dear, Keith. The government were not amused and next day Keith was issuing press releases in which he denied he'd meant ministers as well. But why not? If the rest of us have to piss in a bottle why shouldn't they. Don't we need to know whether people who run the country are using stuff? Shouldn't the man with his finger on Britain's nuclear trigger be subject to MDT? Still, Keith should remember what happened to the last real Tsar, Nicholas Romanov, shot in a cellar by his government. Careful Keith!

... ... ANTI-DRUGS WEAPON USED AGINST IRAQIS ... ...

Back in the 1970s, at the beginning of the US war on drugs, Richard Nixon commissioned the US Department of Agriculture to work on a biological weapon (a screworm, as it was called) to eat the Turkish opium crop (see Fungi of the Bogeymen in this issue). The worm was developed but the idea was dropped. Now there are epidemics of screworm in Iraq, attacking cattle and humans. Scores of people have died and the Iraqis are saying that the worm is a further development of the original anti-poppy weapon and has been deliberately introduced by the US Government. Who'd believe Saddam? Still, it's strange that the two countries suffering from this pest are Libya (Colonel Gadaffi) and Iraq (Saddam Hussein). America's ultimate hate figures.

All newspaper articles summarised here are taken from the excellent and informative Website: Media Awareness Project

www.mapinc.org/drugnews