Compiled by
Paul Stanford
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UPne 07/20/93 AIDS patient who was allowed to smoke pot dies
PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (UPI) -- Kenny Jenks, the nation's last surviving
AIDS patient who could legally smoke marijuana to ease his pain and suffering,
has died at age 31.
Jenks, a hemophiliac who contracted the disease from a tainted blood
transfusion in the early 1980s, died Monday at his home in Panama City Beach of
complications from AIDS.
His wife Barbara, who got the virus from him, died March 28, 1992.
The couple gained national attention after they were convicted of three
felony charges connected with growing marijuana.
The couple fought the convictions, claiming that smoking pot was the only way
they had to alleviate the vomiting and nausea caused by AIDS and the medications
they took to fight the illness.
In April 1991 the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee ruled in their
favor. The Florida Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by the state.
After the trial the couple received medicinal marijuana through an
experimental government program.
Jenks was chairman of the Marijuana/AIDS Research Service.
He had expressed hope President Clinton would allow others to use pot for
medicinal reasons.
"Our major goal is to have marijuana on a prescription basis, like any other
drug, where the decision would be between the doctor and the patient," Jenks
said last November. "It should be an option."
A federal program allowing marijuana use as experimental treatment for
cancer, AIDS, paralysis and chronic pain stopped accepting patients last year.
Jenks was one of the few people who continued to receive legal supplies.
APn 07/21/93 Netherlands-Drugs
By JEROME SOCOLOVSKY
Associated Press Writer
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Jail builders are working overtime and
politicans are appealing to prosecutors to reverse a decision to put some drug
suspects on planes rather than behind bars.
The deportation program approved last week by court officials as a way to
ease prison overcrowding has government leaders worrying the Netherlands'
tradition of tolerence has gone too far.
"This situation is damaging the credibility of our drugs policy, particularly
abroad," Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch-Ballin said in a letter to Parliament
that was released Wednesday.
Since the order took effect, authorities have deported suspected smugglers of
less than 55 pounds of hashish or marijuana. They are then tried in absentia and
barred from returning if convicted.
The Netherlands has no bail system, so suspects must either be kept in
pretrial detention or released on their own recognizance.
Hirsch-Ballin has asked prosecutors to jail and try all suspected drug
smugglers. Meanwhile, the Cabinet last week ordered a speedup in construction of
2,000 prison cells.
The deportation program embarrassed the government at a time when it is
trying to reassure European Community partners it is taking a tougher stance on
drugs.
Many EC states are fearful the elimination of internal border controls will
contribute to the spread of illicit drugs from the Netherlands, where marijuana
and hashish are sold openly in major cities and possession of even heroin is not
prosecuted if the drug is for personal use.
In recent months, police in Amsterdam and Rotterdam have raided drug-selling
cafes, arresting hundreds of drugs users and dealers in an effort to scare away
foreign "drug tourists."
UPn 07/21/93 Rocker Mellencamp's brother arrested
SEYMOUR, Ind. (UPI) -- Rock star John Mellencamp's younger brother Wednesday
was gathering blues material, behind bars on drug charges.
Ted Mellencamp, 40, was held in the Jackson County jail in southern Indiana
in lieu of $64,000 bond on three counts of cocaine dealing and two excise tax
violations.
He was among 44 people arrested Tuesday night in raids in Jackson, Marion,
Bartholomew and Jennings County as the culmination of a nine- month
investigation by four police agencies.
Officials said the suspects collectively faced 144 charges, mainly for
dealing in cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines, LSD, various prescription drugs
and stolen property.
Some, like Ted Mellencamp, faced the tax charges in connection with drug
sales charges.
The raids netted 70 grams of marijuana, 100 grams of cocaine and $10, 000 in
cash, officials said.
State police, Bartholomew County sheriffs officers and city police of Seymour
and Columbus collaborated in the investigation.
APn 07/21/93 Puerto Rico-Drug Raids
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- About 225 police and National Guard troops
moved in before dawn today to take control of a public housing project, the 14th
such operation since authorities stepped up a war on drugs last month.
The takeover was accompanied by drug raids in eight Puerto Rican towns, and
76 people were arrested in all, police said. Those arrested included children as
young as 8 who police said were used as couriers.
Seized at Las Mecetas housing project in the north coast city of Arecibo were
marijuana, cocaine, a revolver, two cars and $2,828 in cash at street
drug-selling points, police said.
The operation was led by island police chief Pedro Toledo, a former FBI
official who has increased coordination with federal agencies and enlisted
National Guard help to combat crime in this U.S. commonwealth of 3.7 million
people. Toledo said police and Guardsmen would remain at the project.
Among those arrested elsewhere were three businessmen and four government
employees, police said.
Besides fighting drugs, Toledo's 13,000-member force is trying to lower
Puerto Rico's murder and carjacking rates, the highest in the United States.
RTw 07/22/93 U.S. TO CARRY OUT ANTI-DRUGS SWEEP IN PARAGUAY
ASUNCION, Paraguay (Reuter) - A U.S. AWACS aircraft will carry out
surveillance missions in Paraguay as part of an anti-drugs cooperation program,
a U.S. embassy official said Thursday.
The U.S. government sent an Air Force AWACS (airborne warning and control
system) aircraft and a refuelling plane for the three-day operation, which was
approved by Paraguay's Congress last week.
The surveillance will cover areas near Paraguay's western borders with
Bolivia and its northern and eastern borders with Brazil. Local newspapers said
Paraguay's borders are dotted with clandestine airstrips in the jungle from
which drug runners may be transporting cocaine and marijuana.
REUTER
UPce 07/23/93 Drug sweep results in 23 arrests
DELPHI, Ind. (UPI) -- A drug sweep culminating a year-long investigation in
Carroll County has resulted in the arrest of 23 individuals.
The raid Thursday morning utilized 30 officers from 12 police agencies.
Authorities said $1,000 worth of marijuana, drug paraphernalia and illicit
prescription drugs were confiscated.
Most of those arrested were charged with possession of marijuana and/or
cocaine.
UPsw 07/27/93 State legislator acquitted on drug charge
McALLEN, Texas (UPI) -- State Rep. Sergio MuInoz, D-Palmview, has been
acquitted on federal drug charges in McAllen.
MuInoz was charged by three former Palmview city officials of assisting them
in a 1992 plan to switch alfalfa for 600 pounds of marijuana before it was to be
destroyed by law officers.
MuInoz was found innocent by a six-man, six-woman jury in just over an hour
Monday.
MuInoz could have faced up to 80 years in prison if convicted.
The three former city officials have all pleaded guilty. They testified
during the MuInoz trial and their sentencing is scheduled later.
UPma 07/27/93 Man sentenced for marijuana farm
PITTSBURGH (UPI) -- An Allegheny County man has been sentenced to 10 years in
federal prison on a drug charge stemming from a raid in which police seized
1,700 marijuana plants from property he owned in Frazer.
Robert Hazlett, 44, of Harrison, Monday received the minimum mandatory
sentence allowed under sentencing guidelines for the amount of marijuana for
which he was charged.
Hazlett pleaded guilty in May to possession with intent to distribute more
than 1,000 marijuana plants.
Authorities searched Hazlett's property in June 1992 after being told about
the marijuana by an informant and seeing the plants from a helicopter.
RTf 07/28/93 Britain, Colombia sign accord on drug assets
LONDON, July 28 (Reuter) - Britain and Colombia, the world's largest cocaine
exporter, agreed on Wednesday to cooperate on confiscating proceeds from
narcotics trafficking.
A British official said Prime Minister John Major and President Cesar
Gaviria signed the agreement after an hour of talks at Major's Downing Street
office.
Major and Gaviria, the first Colombian president to visit Britain, also
discussed ways to increase trade between their two countries, he said.
Colombian drug trafficking is dominated by the Cali cartel, which has links
to the Italian Mafia and extensive connections in the United States. The country
is also one of the biggest marijuana producers.
The official said the agreement, called a "Memorandum of Understanding on
the Seizure and Confiscation of the Assets of Drug Traffickers," would commit
both sides to trace, seize and confiscate drug assets.
The Colombian government, for example, would help trace drug money deposited
in British banks.
The proceeds would be shared but most of the funds would go to Colombia as
an incentive to maintain its anti-drugs war.
REUTER
UPce 07/28/93 California man faces drug charges
BELLEVILLE, Ill. (UPI) -- A California man who was driving a camper that
sheriff's deputies said was carrying 280 pounds of marijuana was held Wednesday
at the St. Clair County Jail on drug trafficking charges.
Ivan Stopforth, 29, of La Jolla, Calif., was charged Tuesday with unlawful
cannabis trafficking for allegedly bringing more than 2,500 grams of marijuana
into Illinois with the intent to deliver, court records showed.
He was held on $30,000 bail.
Stopforth was arrested Monday by St. Clair County Sheriff's deputies after
they stopped him for a traffic violation on Interstate 55-70 at Illinois Route
203, near Fairmount City, about 5 miles east of St. Louis.
Deputies said Stopforth told them he was hauling surfing equipment, but they
said they smelled marijuana in the vehicle. A search revealed a false ceiling in
the camper that concealed a specially built compartment, authorities said.
Deputies found about 280 pounds of marijuana in plastic-wrapped packets with
a street value estimated at $500,000.
UPce 07/28/93 Former policeman acquitted in slaying
INDIANAPOLIS (UPI) -- A former police captain was acquitted Tuesday night of
voluntary manslaughter for shooting a friend he said attacked him.
Whether jurors bought the self-defense argument was unclear, but two jurors
said there was insufficient evidence to persuade them to convict Gerald Sailors,
49, formerly of the Huntington Police Department.
The Marion Superior Court jury deliberated about eight hours before
acquitting Sailors.
He was convicted in a previous trial in Huntington Circuit Court and
sentenced to 22 years in prison. The Indiana Supreme Court overturned the
conviction because of inflammatory statements to the jury by a prosecutor.
Sailors had said he shot Michael L. Fisher, 29, on June 21, 1990, because
Fisher was trying to strangle him.
He said that the night of the killing, Fisher persuaded him to drive in the
countryside near Roanoke in search of drug activity. He said Fisher provoked the
activity by producing a bag of marijuana seeds and tried to strangle him when he
threatened an arrest.
UPce 07/28/93 6 prison workers quit in probe
WESTVILLE, Ind. (UPI) -- Six staff members have quit Indiana's most populous
prison in the wake of allegations they had become criminals themselves.
The resignations at the Westville Correctional Center followed charges of
drug trafficking, theft and sexual misconduct involving three men and three
women employees.
Four employees were guards, one was a teacher and another was a teacher's
assistant.
One new drug trafficking arrest has been made and criminal charges in the
five other cases are being reviewed by the LaPorte County prosecutor's office.
There also was a new arrest Tuesday at the Indiana State Prison at Michigan
City.
The incidents are unrelated, even though all the charges were filed in the
same week, said Deputy Prosecutor Thomas F. Wagner and Indiana Department of
Correction officials.
Wagner said criminal activity has increased among the staff but there is no
indication of any conspiracy or criminal ring. The cases came to light following
the filing of drug-related charges against four other guards at the prison since
May.
"We've increased our efforts to try to stop trafficking inside the prison
walls. Anytime you do that, you'll get more arrests," said correction department
spokeswoman Karen Grau.
Grau said the problem might be more noticeable at Westville because it is the
largest Indiana prison, with 2,658 prisoners and 1,039 employees.
Thursday, John Remmel, a Westville correctional officer was arrested in
Michigan City charged with drug trafficking and bribery, both felonies, Grau
said. He is accused of receiving 4 ounces of marijuana, steroids and $300 in
cash from an undercover state police officer, Grau said.
Remmel and the other five employees resigned after investigators confronted
them with the allegations, Westville investigator Michael Spears said Tuesday.
State law forbids sexual relations between a correctional officer and a
prisoner even if the sex is by consent, Wagner said. Additionally, the law does
not recognize there can be consent when one of the participants has official
authority over the other.
Some of the six also were accused of fraternizing with offenders, meaning
they had some disallowed contact, Spears said.
Grau withheld the names of the others who resigned because the investigations
are incomplete.
Wagner said the LaPorte County prosecutor's office recently scrapped an
unwritten policy that for years let many employees avoid imprisonment through
lenient plea bargains or early retirements.
On Tuesday a guard at the Michigan City prison, Carlton Smith, was charged
with a misdemeanor trafficking offense. He is accused of receiving $100 from an
inmate, Wagner said.
RTw 07/28/93 EVEN RATS GET 'HIGH' IN PHILIPPINES
MANILA, Philippines (Reuter) - A Philippine police chief said Wednesday that
rats and roaches -- not unscrupulous policemen with an eye for re-sale value --
account for the loss of thousands of dollars worth of illegal drugs seized from
addicts.
Col. Generoso Necesito said an inventory of drugs kept in the police crime
laboratory as evidence against addicts and pushers showed that S26,900 worth of
marijuana, "ice" (metampethamine hydrochloride) and cocaine had been eaten by
rodents and cockroaches.
Published reports that the drugs might have been sold by those guarding the
evidence were baseless, he said by telephone.
He said an inventory showed that rats had gnawed their way into the lockers
where drugs were stored.
The missing drugs were among piles of other drugs wrapped in cellophane
which had been stored in the laboratory for 10 years while the cases against the
accused were pending in the courts, Necesito said.
"I suppose they (the rats) also got high after eating them," he said.
REUTER
UPsw 07/29/93 Survey says fewer teens using drugs
AUSTIN, Texas (UPI) - A survey by the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug
Abuse indicates that fewer Texas teenagers are using drugs.
The use of marijuana among teens showed the most dramatic drop, with 19.7
percent saying in 1992 that they had tried it compared to 31 percent in 1988.
The survey said alcohol use declined from 81 percent to 76 percent in the
past two years, with 37 percent of the respondents saying they had been drinking
less than a month before the survey was taken.
Cocaine use dropped from 6.7 percent in 1988 to 5 percent in 1992.
The commission also said it found that wine coolers are the most popular
alcoholic beverage among Texas teenagers.
07/29/93 [untitled - Aykroyd posts bail for cultivator]
SOUTHBURY, Conn. (AP) -- Dan Aykroyd bailed out a man charged with growing
about $400,000 worth of marijuana.
"Anyone that knows Mr. Aykroyd knows that he would never turn his back on a
friend," his publicist, Susan Patricola, said Thursday. She would not elaborate.
Aykroyd provided the $100,000 bond to get John Murtha, 46, of Milford, out of
the New Haven Correctional Center last week, authorities said.
Murtha and his girlfriend, Dorothy Young, 37, face a variety of drug charges
after a July 21 raid on the house where marijuana allegedly was grown.
Young remained in jail on $130,000 bail.
Police said Aykroyd also bailed Murtha out in 1991, when he and Young were
charged with marijuana possession. They pleaded guilty and await sentencing.
------
UPwe 07/29/93 Mendocino D.A. not to prosecute certain misdemeanors
UKIAH, Calif. (UPI) -- A newspaper reported Thursday that Mendocino County
District Attorney Susan Massini has decided not to prosecute certain misdemeanor
crimes.
In a letter to local law enforcement officials, Massini cited budget cuts as
the reason for cutting back on her department's workload. She said she would not
prosecute cases involving assault and battery, if there were no injuries; theft
valued at under $50; minor embazzlement cases; and possession of less than an
ounce of marijuana.
However, Massini said every case would be evaluated individually before a
decision is made.
The letter was obtained by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
UPse 07/30/93 Committee refuses to reinstate former judge's license
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (UPI) -- Alabama's State Bar disciplinary committee on
Friday refused to reinstate the law license of former Morgan County Circuit
Judge Tom Coggin.
Coggin was disbarred in 1981 after being arrested in the Florida Panhandle
and pleading guilty to smuggling nearly 100 pounds of marijuana into the country
in a small private plane.
Coggin served 17 months in a Florida prison before returning to his north
Alabama home.
"I will not sit here and tell you that I did it because I needed the money,
sir. I did it for all the wrong reasons. I did it for foolishness --
excitement," Coggin said.
An attorney for the bar association argued that Coggin "disgraced the office"
of judge by smuggling drugs and, after nine minutes behind closed doors, the
committee agreed.
Afterward, Coggin said he would not appeal the committee's ruling.
APn 07/30/93 Mexico-Drugs
By BILL CORMIER
Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Could the North American Free Trade Agreement lead to
increased cocaine and marijuana traffic from Mexico to the United States?
That is the special worry expressed by some pact opponents as negotiations on
the agreement conclude.
Already, at least half of all Colombia's cocaine is believed to pass through
Mexico on its way to the United States, making control of the Mexican drug lanes
worth billions of dollars.
The latest talks on the treaty have failed so far to address the drug issue.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, a strong foe of the treaty, said by telephone from
Washington, "The upsurge in drug violence is cause for alarm. With trade bound
to increase dramatically under the ... treaty, so will the illegal drug trade."
"Not anywhere in the 2,000-page treaty document is there any mention of how
to control drug smuggling."
If approved, the trade treaty would link 360 million consumers in the United
States, Canada and Mexico and eliminate most trade barriers. More goods could
flow across borders with less checking.
Kaptur said that would allow more drugs to pass northward. "Just look at the
number of cars that roll into Texas without being checked," she said.
Others shrug off drug fears as part of an anti-NAFTA campaign before what may
be a nasty fight in Congress.
But many members of Congress are wary about an open border being more
vulnerable to traffickers, in addition to environmental worries about U.S. jobs
threatened by cheap Mexican labor.
A declassified U.S. intelligence report, made public in May, says Mexican
traffickers are preparing to expand smuggling under NAFTA.
"Their plan calls for establishing maquilladora factories, free trade
warehousing areas and borderland purchases. Once in place these operations can
be used as fronts for drug trafficking activities into the U.S.," it said.
Ralph Saucedo, attache for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in
Mexico, dismisses the document as "a report written in 1989, by someone who
hadn't been on the streets."
He scoffed at the idea Mexico would suddenly open the border for a free flow
of drugs and said immigration officials on both sides have already strengthened
surveillance.
Saucedo added, "Remember, this is a tremendously long and porous border and
people will do anything to get drugs across: they'll dig a tunnel, they'll swim
the Rio Grande with 20 kilos (44 pounds) on their backs, anything they can."
Mexican agents in May uncovered a 1,417-foot tunnel crossing the border near
Tijuana. Officials said it was one of the most sophisticated smuggling endeavors
yet, reportedly the work of northern Mexico's powerful Sinaloa cartel.
"Mexico is both a major source country for heroin and marijuana and a transit
country for South American cocaine destined for the U.S," the State Department
reported in April. "The country continues to play a critical role in efforts to
control the flow of illicit drugs into the U.S."
It praised Mexico for its war on drug trafficking.
But jitters about drugs are not just on Capitol Hill.
Mexicans remember well a burst of drug gang shootouts. Roman Catholic
Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo was killed in Guadalajara when caught in the
crossfire of a drug shootout May 24.
Last November, 35 traffickers attacked a rival cartel at a crowded
discotheque in the Pacific resort of Puerto Vallarta, killing six people.
Hundreds fled in terror.
In March, a Colorado schoolteacher vacationing in Cancun was killed
accidentally in a hit by one gang against a rival trafficker.
Peter Reuter of the Rand Corp., a private think tank that does research for
the government, said from his Washington headquarters that the stream of drugs
will remain enormous with or without NAFTA.
He said despite Mexico's anti-drug war, "it's not clear that any of this has
made a damn bit of difference on the flow of drugs into the United States."
"The premise underlying the argument that smuggling will increase under NAFTA
is that smuggling is very difficult now. Well, it's not very difficult now."
UPce 07/31/93 Judge will reconsider drug dealer's life sentence
INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indianapolis man serving a life sentence on marijuana
charges may get a second chance from a federal judge.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered U.S. District Judge Sarah
Evans Barker to reconsider the sentence she imposed on Mark D. Young in February
1992.
Young was convicted for his role in a marijuana growing-and-selling operation
in Putnam County. He helped arrange the sale of 700 to 800 pounds of the drug,
but did not help grow it.
The life sentence, without parole, was required in part because it was
Young's third felony drug conviction.
However, the judge had to find that he could be held responsible for
conspiring to grow and distribute at least 1,000 pounds of marijuana to justify
the sentence.
In her ruling, Barker said Young should be held responsible for all the
marijuana grown by the ring, not just the amount he helped sell.
The appeals court ruled the evidence wasn't sufficient to support the life
sentence and sent the case back to Barker for review.
The judge could re-impose the life term, but must give adequate justification
if she does so.
If the rehearing is denied, or if the original decision is upheld, Young will
be returned to U.S. District Court in Indianapolis for resentencing.
Young currently is incarcerated at the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan.
WP 08/01/93 Pam Davis
By Eugene L. Meyer
Washington Post Staff Writer
SILVER RUN, Md. -- It's two days since Pamela Snowhite Davis was released
from prison. She's going to RFK Stadium in Washington to celebrate.
"I'm on my way down to the Dead show, and a little R&R," she says on the
phone, plucking a phrase that is, like her, straight out of the '60s.
She has every reason to feel good. After serving eight weeks of a two-year
sentence for marijuana possession, she's been set free while her appeal is
pending. Her case has made her a cause ce'le`bre for aging hippies and
free-speech advocates. Robbed of her income, she had expected to lose her home
to foreclosure, but at the last minute an anonymous benefactor stepped in to
assume the mortgage. Her Carroll County counterculture clothing store,
Liberation, which sells old protest buttons and marijuana leaf jewelry and other
openly seditious merchandise, remains defiantly open.
But she's miserable. She's free, but she's not free.
Having spent several seasons "touring" with the Grateful Dead, as many as
50 shows a year, she is surely one of the world's biggest Deadheads. But this
time she finds the music too loud, the fans too drunk and rowdy. Prison does
that to you. You have no privacy. You learn to value solitude, and to appreciate
gentility.
So she leaves after one raucous set. She wanders the parking lot, where she
is accosted by a man who recognizes her from the news. He's nice-looking, in a
hard way. He commiserates. He says that unlike her, he's done time for "real
crimes."
With the Dead rampaging inside, the two talk quietly for hours, mostly about
life in the slammer. Having to grovel before petty tyrants for extra toilet
paper, that sort of thing.
"He is the only person since I've gotten out I've been able to relate to,
talk to, that understands," says Davis, 48, who had never before run afoul of
the law. "My peers are now people who've done time, because I've got nothing in
common with the rest of the world.
"It's going to cost $15,000 for the appeal. I already owe my lawyer $45,000.
I don't have the money to buy my own freedom. My body's free but the rest of me
is still in prison. My life is a disaster because of this. My 1989 motor home
sits in the driveway because I don't have the money for insurance. I was a
person with a spotless credit rating."
Once a prosperous businesswoman, she lives on 54 acres of rolling farmland
in a 21-room house 75 miles north of Washington. In her lowest moments, she says
she is actually considering going back to prison to serve out her sentence,
rather than continuing to pay a lawyer to contest it.
"The point is," she says, in a husky, chain-smoker's voice, "how could this
have happened in America? How could this have happened to me? I didn't murder, I
didn't steal, I didn't lie. I didn't break any of the Ten Commandments or the
Golden Rule."
There have been far greater miscarriages of justice in the news recently than
anything done to Pamela Davis. One man served nearly nine years for a rape and
murder he did not commit; another was taken into custody and charged with as
dastardly a crime as one can imagine, the random shooting of six children at a
public swimming pool. Oops, no evidence. Sorry, our mistake.
The Pamela Davis case is nothing like those. Still, it stands out - not just
because of the nature of the crime and the severity of the punishment, but
because it involves a collision of the values of 1960s and the 1990s, a classic
test of freedoms. To what extent should a community be free to set its own
ethical standards, however draconian they may be? Was Pamela Davis punished for
being a lawbreaker or for being a loudmouth?
Davis got two years for an infraction that in California gets you a $100
civil fine. Even in most Maryland jurisdictions, she would have walked away with
a fine and probation, if she were convicted at all; of 10,000 people
incarcerated in Maryland state prisons last year, only four were there for
marijuana possession.
Davis had been caught with less than an ounce of marijuana in her nightstand
drawer, following a police "I don't care if it's a seed, a leaf or 1 million
pounds. It's like being pregnant. You either are or aren't."
_ - Prosecutor Barton F. Walker IIIsearch of questionable legality. The
complaint cited the incriminating presence of such "drug paraphernalia" in her
house as High Times magazines, a light that could be used to grow plants
indoors, and photographs of marijuana plants.
A Carroll County jury acquitted her of possession with intent to sell but
found her guilty of having the stuff, and of "maintaining a common nuisance," an
ancient law originally enacted to close down bordellos. Ignoring a county
probation agency's recommendation for no jail time, a judge threw the book at
her.
The problem was that Pam Davis did not just break the law. She also
committed the sin of hubris: Convicted in a conservative county in front of a
conservative judge, she rejected remorse in favor of rhetoric. Fulminating with
outrage, between her conviction and her sentencing she became a boisterous
marijuana advocate. The Marijuana Mama.
This did not go over well. Gesturing toward Davis - a defendant in sweater
and jeans whose son was conceived at Woodstock and given the name Kif, a term
for a type of marijuana - prosecutor Barton F. Walker III thundered to the
courtroom that the defendant shared the blame for crack babies and other victims
of a society that condones drug use: "The problems of the country can be laid at
the feet of people like Miss Davis."
Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr. agreed. Beck is a 54-year-old crew-cut
former Marine, son of a police officer, lieutenant colonel in the Maryland
National Guard, former Republican minority leader of the Maryland General
Assembly.
"You fight for causes, but you are marching under false colors," Beck told
her at her sentencing in April.
Beck has a reputation for being tough but fair, a judge capable of
compassion, even leniency. He once sentenced to a year in jail a woman who stole
$130,000 from her employer. He freed on five years' probation a man charged with
attempted murder who lit a homemade bomb under his wife's car. He gave probation
to a 49-year-old man convicted of sexually abusing his daughter for seven years.
Beck gave first-offender Davis a five-year sentence, and then suspended only
three of them.
The Marijuana Mama was marched away in restraints. A bearded spectator
raised a clenched fist and shouted, "The solution is the revolution!"
In the hallway, 22-year-old Kif Davis - a longhaired anarchist, a
Yippie-come-lately out of place and time - declared, "Every cop in this room is
a fascist." Whether he actually jostled a sheriff's deputy is under dispute,
but he was handcuffed and arrested on charges of assault and battery.
Graffiti began appearing around Carroll County: "Free Pam Davis."
And finally, it has come to this: Pamela Snowhite Davis, a clothing retailer
who lives quietly if eccentrically with four ferrets and 20 cats and a
potbellied pig in rural Maryland 75 miles north of Washington, has been named
High Times magazine's Highwitness News Freedom Fighter of the Month for August.
It was on May 7, 1992 that Pam Davis's life went up in smoke. Without her
knowledge, son Kif had ordered a small package of marijuana from California.
United Parcel Service discovered it and contacted the authorities in Carroll
County. It was addressed to nobody in particular at the Davis farm.
The package was delivered, but by a cop in a United Parcel Service uniform.
No sooner had it been signed for, by Davis's daughter, Sara, than a search
warrant was shown and executed. Police found Kif on the roof, desperately
wolfing down almost all of the 1 1/2 ounces of pot he'd ordered. Scouring the
house, police found High Times magazines in his room and 25 grams of marijuana
in his mother's nightstand drawer. That's roughly as much as would fill a pack
of cigarettes.
Kif pleaded guilty to possession, received probation and paid a $1,000 fine.
Charges against Sara Davis, 20, were thrown out. But charges against mother Pam,
who wasn't home when the package came, stuck. And then she made a dumb mistake.
Instead of hiring a lawyer she initally chose to represent herself, and
suddenly discovered the classic truism: that she had a fool for a client.
Unwittingly, she missed a filing deadline to challenge the legality of the
search. A separate challenge of the search, by a lawyer representing daughter
Sara, had been upheld by the court: Because undercover police officers had
delivered the drugs, they in effect had obtained a search warrant based on the
presence of contraband that they themselves had supplied. Not fair.
But Pam Davis never got to argue that.
With the legality of the search not at issue, her conviction - on something
- was assured.
In a sense, Pam Davis's troubles with Carroll County began years before she
ever set foot here. Carroll County did not so much survive the rebellious spirit
of the 1960s as ignore it. It would not be able to ignore Pam Davis. She was the
1960s.
Born in Philadelphia - Snowhite was a clumsy Ellis Island anglicization of
her grandfather's Russian name - and raised in nearby Woodbury, N.J., she did,
she says, "the hippie-dippie thing," marched for peace, went to rock festivals.
She also got married, and for 15 years she and her husband, Dan, owned and
operated head shops, mostly on the Jersey shore and also in Philadelphia.
"The most exciting thing I ever did in my life was to get high with Janis
Joplin," she says. That was in Davis's store - the Apple - on Sansom Street,
which was "like the Haight-Ashbury of Philadelphia."
Pam and Dan have been separated for two years now, but Pam's problems, along
with their dwindling community property, have drawn them closer.
In 1987, they bought a farm about two miles from the Mason-Dixon line. They
had the farmhouse painted gray, with pink shutters. They installed an outdoor
Jacuzzi between the house and pond. They had a full-time cleaning person and a
Mercedes. From the eight-bedroom house, they did a wholesale business in clothes
imported from Guatemala - grossing $400,000 in 1991. They seldom went to town.
"We were two adults playing," she says. "It was like Green Acres."
If only she had come to, say, Takoma Park, the counterculture capital of
Montgomery County, to settle. But no, she wanted to live on a farm. And in
Carroll County, no less. The largely agricultural county of 131,000 northwest of
Baltimore is Bible Belt Republican.
"It's a hotbed of conservative activity," said Jeff Griffith, a Democrat who
labels "an aberration" his two terms as county commissioner. Moving here from
Baltimore County, he said, "I was a moderate Democrat. As you drive west out
Liberty Road, I became a liberal Democrat. By the time you got to Taneytown, I
was a screaming Abbie Hoffman radical."
"Our people are very law-abiding and fed up with drugs," said five-term
State's Attorney Thomas E. Hickman, who came here from Baltimore to escape crime
and high taxes. "It's a different world. It's amazing how close we are to
Baltimore and Washington. It's nothing to take a day trip there, to enjoy the
culture, and yet to come home in the evening and be free of crime."
Folks here voted overwhelmingly against a state gun control initiative a
few years back, Hickman notes with approval. "Guns are a very positive factor in
the community. We have more guns in Carroll County than in Washington, D.C.,
probably. They are used by law-abiding people and discourage burglars."
In this conservative climate, the Carroll County Narcotics Task Force has
won wide public support. For the past three years, its coordinator has been
tousle-haired prosecutor Barton Walker.
"This is beautiful country, real pretty, good people," Walker said. "It's one
of the last places you don't have the problems of the urban areas. That's why we
try to protect it so zealously."
Or, as Walker said in court in the Pamela Davis case, "Anybody (against
whom) we find probable cause, we'll charge and prosecute, and if we have to work
24 hours a day, we'll do it. We want a clean, nice community. That's the
philosophy we have. We plan to press on with it. I don't care if it's a seed, a
leaf or 1 million pounds. It's like being pregnant. You either are or aren't."
Walker's boss, State's Attorney Hickman, also serves on the drug task force.
A few years ago, Hickman's mother-in-law found herself in a situation not
entirely unlike that of Pam Davis. Police found marijuana plants and packages in
her town house. They allegedly belonged to her son.
Both were arrested. There was a discreet, quick hearing in the county
courthouse, and charges against the mother were thrown out. The only witness in
her four-minute hearing was her son, who testified she knew nothing about his
stash. He pleaded guilty to possession with intent to sell, and received a
suspended sentence.
The case was handled by an outside prosecutor, to avoid any apparent
conflict of interest, says Hickman, but a local judge presided and Davis
supporters continue to cite it as an example of the county's double standard.
No "common nuisance" charge was brought.
After her arrest, Davis became a legalization activist and an outspoken critic
of the drug task force. She testified before Congress, she appeared on ABC-TV's
"World News Tonight," she fielded phone calls on National Public Radio's "Talk
of the Nation." She formed AAMP - Americans Against Marijuana Prohibition - and
she carried in her store what she said were legal, sterilized hemp seeds
incapable of germinating into marijuana, along with a hemp seed cookbook.
"We were, like, giving out the seeds," Kif explains. "They're, like, the
second most nutritional thing on the planet next to, like, soybeans. We were
passing them out in the store and selling them with this cookbook, basically to
show that pot has a lot of uses and has had for thousands of years." From these
seeds sprouted a fresh bumper crop of trouble.
The day before her trial was to begin last November, police seized pounds of
seeds and other items from her store and arrested her for allegedly selling hemp
seeds capable of becoming marijuana. There ensued a nightmarish several hours,
during which she was handcuffed, strip-searched and held overnight in jail.
Davis was ultimately acquitted after the state's own witness, a chemist,
would admit only that there was "a possibility" that hemp seeds could turn into
marijuana. The chemist's own attempt to germinate the seeds ended in sprouts the
size of a comma.
At sentencing in the marijuana possession case, Judge Beck not only had a
recommendation for leniency from the probation agency, he also had a dozen
letters from supporters ranging from Davis's therapist to her next-door
neighbor, an official of the Montgomery County Department of Correction and
Rehabilitation, who wrote that his family never saw evidence of drugs or
alcohol at the Davis residence, elements needed to sustain the "common nuisance"
charge, the only felony for which she was convicted.
It was, says her current lawyer, Stephen P. Bourexis, "such an ordinary case
with extraordinary events attached to it." She had, he said, been treated with
undue harshness because of "the label she's carried, the mouthy marijuana
advocate."
Beck, who declined to be interviewed for this article, accused Davis in court
of blaming everyone but herself for her troubles. "You're to blame," he said.
"You exposed your children to the drug culture and, by your conduct, told them
it was okay."
Defiant the day before sentencing, she was less so before Beck: "It was
never my intention to cause any shame to this community, to bring any notoriety
to this community. ... I've paid enough."
Not enough, Beck ruled. Not by two years.
After Davis had been led away, Walker said: "We never stomped on anybody's
rights. We did it by the book. The system in this case worked."
Pam Davis would spend eight weeks "locked down" at the Women's Correctional
Institution at Jessup.
Her first 11 days she spent in isolation, a normal procedure for new
prisoners, the warden says. Deprived at first of cigarettes, she says she
hallucinated in her cell from nicotine withdrawal.
"Sometimes," she says to a visitor on her 50th day of captivity, "I'm
sitting and talking with a group of ladies and I realize, my God, we're all
criminals; whatever we've done, society has decided we're all criminals and
deserved to be locked behind bars and high fences and razor wire.
" `E.T., come home': That's what a lot of girls say to me. I'm like an alien
here. I'm not a danger to society. I did nothing to harm anyone. I'll never be
sorry for what I did. I stood up and said they're out of line... .
"We have a generation of middle-aged hippies in disguise, in short hair and
dress suits, living their suburban lives. They're doctors, lawyers, presidents
... and I'm here."
She is wearing moccasins, a T-shirt and bluejeans. She looks like hell.
"It's all right to drive around drunk and end other people's lives, but
it's not all right to take a couple of puffs of marijuana in your own home, in
your own bedroom by yourself. This isn't a democracy. It's a hypocrisy." She
pauses, then smiles and says, "That's a good quote, isn't it?"
A week later, she is standing in front of a judge in Anne Arundel County,
where the prison is located and where her lawyers have smartly sidestepped
Beck and filed a fresh motion to have her freed on appeal. To Bart Walker's
chagrin, Circuit Judge Bruce C. Williams refuses to send the case back to
Carroll.
And this time, it's not Pam Davis but Carroll County on trial.
"This is 1993," declares attorney William H. "Billy" Murphy Jr., a
flamboyant former Baltimore judge. "There is a sense of proportionality we all
have learned which is lost up there. It's a battle between the strait-laced
citizens of Carroll County who believe in the right to a lifestyle free of the
pollution of my client's point of view. She represents to them the followers of
the Grateful Dead, a throwback to the '60s. Pam Davis is part of a larger
culture that Carroll County believes is alien. All of us have to be reminded to
be tolerant. This isn't Carroll County. This is America."
Pam Davis, he asserts, "is not being prosecuted for marijuana possession.
She's being prosecuted for anarchist tendencies, for the quality of her public
expressions, for her avowed intention to continue using marijuana... .
"This is a case about a lifestyle. It's not about justice or a threat to
society. ... This is not a prosecution. This is a persecution."
Now it's Walker's turn. "We're not backwards in Carroll County, we're
progressive," he says. "In Carroll County, we follow the law and hold people
accountable for their conduct. We don't say, gee, it's 1993, we ought to be
permissive. ..." Pam Davis was prosecuted for breaking the law, he says. It's
just that simple. "This is not about free speech. It's about breaking the law,
about a substance that is extremely dangerous. ... I think she's dangerous. Not
that she's going to go out and blow somebody away, although I'm not sure. ...
She has absolutely no remorse. ... She is contemptuous. ... That's why she's in
jail."
Answered the judge: "The question is whether justice is served by keeping
her incarcerated while she appeals. Normal sentences for this crime don't result
in incarceration. Bail is appropriate."
On $10,000 unsecured bond, Pam Davis is set free.
That was Wednesday. The farm was to be auctioned off by the bank Friday. But
late Thursday, the sale was canceled when an anonymous corporation - whose owner
doesn't live in Carroll County - bought the mortgage, according to Davis's
lawyer, Charles O. Fisher Jr., "not for an investment but because it was not
interested in seeing any more injustice done to Pam Davis or her family."
On a coffee table in her house, in the small room where she sleeps these days
on a couch by the TV, is a book: "Can't Jail the Spirit: Political Prisoners in
the U.S." Pam Davis is nothing if not spirited.
She has been asked to speak at the 24th annual Independence Day "Smoke-In"
in Lafayette Square opposite the White House. Her lawyer has told her to cool
it. To speak or not to speak? She agonizes, but not for long, and goes, sporting
on her right arm a temporary "tattoo" of a marijuana leaf.
"This time last year," she tells the assembled, "I was sitting on the
lawn like you folks are and I was a free American, but my life has literally
gone to pot. I also have a word for that man who lives across the street. Hey,
Bill, why aren't you out here with the rest of your generation?"
Pam Davis was, after all this, still in business, although her store's
landlord, sick of the publicity has been trying to evict her. A sign in the
window, to which the landlord objects, says: "Going-Going-Gone to Pot; Total
Liquidation Relocation Sale; 50% Off; May the Seed of Truth We Planted Here
Forever Flourish." There is a tombstone with the inscription: "Liberation, RIP."
But she will reopen elsewhere, she is sure.
As she appeals her sentence and seeks to rebuild her life, she looks
forward, among other things, to next January's boutique trade show in New York.
It will be a showcase for merchandise such as hers, displaying popular images on
T-shirts and other garments, images such as the forbidden green leaf.
If she has her way, Pam Davis says excitedly, "everyone in America is going
to be walking around with a hemp leaf on their chest."
But maybe not in Carroll County.
RTw 08/02/93 GERMAN WOMAN HELD IN CHINA ON DRUG CHARGES
BEIJING, Aug 2 (Reuter) - A German woman carrying nearly five kg (10 lb) of
marijuana in two false-bottomed suitcases was arrested in China's northern port
city of Tianjin, Xinhua news agency said on Monday.
The suspect, identified as 37-year-old Doris Wunsch, was arrested on July
19 as she prepared to board a ship bound for Japan, the official agency said.
Wunsch admitted carrying contraband but said she had been entrusted with
the suitcases by what she thought was an Austrian man she had met in Beijing who
had asked her to carry the suitcases for him to Japan, Xinhua said.
It said police had determined the man was Australian and had left China a
day before Wunsch's arrest,
The report did not say how police found the 4,840 grammes of marijuana in
the two tourist suitcases, which were modified with hidden compartments.
German Embassy officials have been allowed to visit the woman in Tianjin.
REUTER
circa 08/02/93 [untitled fragment - Appeals Court Rules Police Can't Use Child]
The appeals court unanimously agreed with the lower court.
Police cannot use unadvised child against parents: court
In a southern Indiana case, state police officers who persuaded a juvenile to
let them search her parents' property for marijuana acted illegally, the appeals
court ruled unanimously.
Posey County Court suppressed the evidence, which left authorities no means
to prosecute the parents.
Alvie and Mary Norman were away from home when the Evansville state police
post got an anonymous tip that they were growing marijuana on their land.
Officers drove by the place in cars and on a farm tractor, but were unable to
spot any marijuana, but they did see Alvie's 17-year- old daughter, Tara.
After they threatened to get a search warrant, she consented to let them
search the property.
The court said the unwarranted search was illegal, because the girl acted
without legal counsel and had no advice from a parent or legal guardian.
The search was illegal even under the argument that the parents were acting
against Tara's interest, the judges said. They also questioned how it could be
in her interest to expose herself to prosecution for possession of marijuana.
circa 08/02/93 IU survey shows decrease in drug use except for marijuana
By IU News Bureau
Distributed by UPI
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Binge drinking is down and marijuana use is up among
Hoosier high-school graduating seniors, according to a survey released Wednesday
by the Indiana Prevention Resource Center at Indiana University.
Overall, prevalence statistics of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use by
Indiana school children in grades 5-12 offer clear evidence that the state's
prevention programs are having an impact, said center director William Bailey.
The survey was conducted under contract to the Indiana Family and Social
Services Administration, Division of Mental Health.
Now in its third consecutive year, the survey gathered data from students in
394 participating schools throughout the state. It found a consistent pattern of
decreased drug use among Hoosier youth -- with the exception of marijuana. The
sample size contained 90,586 usable surveys.
High school seniors reporting use of marijuana at least once in their lives
increased from 31 percent to 35.3 percent during the past year. The statistic
may be an indication, Bailey said, of the "mixed signals" regarding marijuana
use being communicated by certain recording artists and others who wield heavy
influence with young people.
Reported use of cocaine, including crack cocaine, dropped among Hoosier
youths during the past year. Rates of use of amphetamines, tranquilizers and
prescription narcotics dropped an average of one-fifth from previous survey
reports, although Hoosier student usage continues to remain significantly higher
than comparable national statistics.
A slight drop in the use of psychedelic drugs, such as LSD and mescaline, was
noted. "The Hoosier rates vary only slightly from those reported nationally, but
may be higher than the public might expect. Nationally, and in Indiana, more
than 11 percent of high school seniors have had some experience with
psychedelics and about 5 percent of them use on a monthly basis," Bailey said.
The most significant good news was the decline in the use of "key gateway
drugs," Bailey said. "Use of tobacco and alcohol declined significantly among
Hoosier children and adolescents." Use of smokeless tobacco decreased
dramatically for all grades and use of cigarettes and alcohol decreased for most
grades.
Binge drinking, defined as drinking to the point of intoxication or drinking
five or more drinks on a single occasion within two weeks of the survey,
declined for the third consecutive year, although the practice among Hoosier
youth remains significantly greater than rates reported nationally.
This year 34.3 percent of Hoosier high school seniors reported binge
drinking, compared to 37.6 percent in 1992 and 38.7 percent in 1991.
"Although these rates are significantly greater than rates reported
nationally -- in 1992 the national rate was 27.9 percent -- the reported
decrease demonstrates significant progress in reducing the prevalence of the
most destructive type of adolescent alcohol abuse," Bailey said.
More than half of Hoosier high school seniors reported drinking on a monthly
or more frequent basis. Slightly more than 23 percent smoke cigarettes and 6.9
percent use smokeless tobacco on a daily basis. Ten percent of female juniors
and seniors reported some use of smokeless tobacco, traditionally considered a
"male drug."
The survey was designed specifically to measure the impact of prevention
programs, as opposed to programs that are law enforcement- based or
treatment-based, Bailey said.
"Many of the indicators of effectiveness of prevention -- such as general
knowledge about drugs and perceptions of risk and peer disapproval --
demonstrate that we've seen some major impact of the prevention programs
operating in the state of Indiana."
Each county has a council that tries to analyze and improve the drug
prevention, treatment and law enforcement programs of a community, funded by the
state and local Drug-Free Indiana funds, Bailey said.
In addition, every school corporation except one in the state participates in
the Drug-Free Schools and Communities programs through the U.S. Department of
Education. The Indiana Division of Mental Health funds about 60 community-based
prevention programs in non-school settings.
Compiled by
Paul Stanford