we are writing you about your claim for social security disability benefits. based on a review of your health problems you do not qualify for benefits on this claim. this is because you are not disabled under our rules.

we have determined that your condition is not severe enough to keep you from working.

we realise that your condition prevents you from doing your past work, but it does not prevent you from doing jobs that are less demanding.

if your condition gets worse and keeps you from working, write, call or visit any social security office about filing another appliciation.

—

8/

Thoughts on Music
By Steve Jobs
February 6, 2007

With the stunning global success of Apple’s iPod music player and iTunes online music store, some have called for Apple to “open” the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played on digital devices purchased from other companies, and protected music purchased from other online music stores can play on iPods. Let’s examine the current situation and how we got here, then look at three possible alternatives for the future.

To begin, it is useful to remember that all iPods play music that is free of any DRM and encoded in “open” licensable formats such as MP3 and AAC. iPod users can and do acquire their music from many sources, including CDs they own. Music on CDs can be easily imported into the freely-downloadable iTunes jukebox software which runs on both Macs and Windows PCs, and is automatically encoded into the open AAC or MP3 formats without any DRM. This music can be played on iPods or any other music players that play these open formats.

The rub comes from the music Apple sells on its online iTunes Store. Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the “big four” music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. These four companies control the distribution of over 70% of the world’s music. When Apple approached these companies to license their music to distribute legally over the Internet, they were extremely cautious and required Apple to protect their music from being illegally copied. The solution was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices.

Apple was able to negotiate landmark usage rights at the time, which include allowing users to play their DRM protected music on up to 5 computers and on an unlimited number of iPods. Obtaining such rights from the music companies was unprecedented at the time, and even today is unmatched by most other digital music services. However, a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store.

To prevent illegal copies, DRM systems must allow only authorized devices to play the protected music. If a copy of a DRM protected song is posted on the Internet, it should not be able to play on a downloader’s computer or portable music device. To achieve this, a DRM system employs secrets. There is no theory of protecting content other than keeping secrets. In other words, even if one uses the most sophisticated cryptographic locks to protect the actual music, one must still “hide” the keys which unlock the music on the user’s computer or portable music player. No one has ever implemented a DRM system that does not depend on such secrets for its operation.

The problem, of course, is that there are many smart people in the world, some with a lot of time on their hands, who love to discover such secrets and publish a way for everyone to get free (and stolen) music. They are often successful in doing just that, so any company trying to protect content using a DRM must frequently update it with new and harder to discover secrets. It is a cat-and-mouse game. Apple’s DRM system is called FairPlay. While we have had a few breaches in FairPlay, we have been able to successfully repair them through updating the iTunes store software, the iTunes jukebox software and software in the iPods themselves. So far we have met our commitments to the music companies to protect their music, and we have given users the most liberal usage rights available in the industry for legally downloaded music.

With this background, let’s now explore three different alternatives for the future.

The first alternative is to continue on the current course, with each manufacturer competing freely with their own “top to bottom” proprietary systems for selling, playing and protecting music. It is a very competitive market, with major global companies making large investments to develop new music players and online music stores. Apple, Microsoft and Sony all compete with proprietary systems. Music purchased from Microsoft’s Zune store will only play on Zune players; music purchased from Sony’s Connect store will only play on Sony’s players; and music purchased from Apple’s iTunes store will only play on iPods. This is the current state of affairs in the industry, and customers are being well served with a continuing stream of innovative products and a wide variety of choices.

Some have argued that once a consumer purchases a body of music from one of the proprietary music stores, they are forever locked into only using music players from that one company. Or, if they buy a specific player, they are locked into buying music only from that company’s music store. Is this true? Let’s look at the data for iPods and the iTunes store – they are the industry’s most popular products and we have accurate data for them. Through the end of 2006, customers purchased a total of 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store. On average, that’s 22 songs purchased from the iTunes store for each iPod ever sold.

Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats. It’s hard to believe that just 3% of the music on the average iPod is enough to lock users into buying only iPods in the future. And since 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from the iTunes store, iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music.

The second alternative is for Apple to license its FairPlay DRM technology to current and future competitors with the goal of achieving interoperability between different company’s players and music stores. On the surface, this seems like a good idea since it might offer customers increased choice now and in the future. And Apple might benefit by charging a small licensing fee for its FairPlay DRM. However, when we look a bit deeper, problems begin to emerge. The most serious problem is that licensing a DRM involves disclosing some of its secrets to many people in many companies, and history tells us that inevitably these secrets will leak. The Internet has made such leaks far more damaging, since a single leak can be spread worldwide in less than a minute. Such leaks can rapidly result in software programs available as free downloads on the Internet which will disable the DRM protection so that formerly protected songs can be played on unauthorized players.

An equally serious problem is how to quickly repair the damage caused by such a leak. A successful repair will likely involve enhancing the music store software, the music jukebox software, and the software in the players with new secrets, then transferring this updated software into the tens (or hundreds) of millions of Macs, Windows PCs and players already in use. This must all be done quickly and in a very coordinated way. Such an undertaking is very difficult when just one company controls all of the pieces. It is near impossible if multiple companies control separate pieces of the puzzle, and all of them must quickly act in concert to repair the damage from a leak.

Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies. Perhaps this same conclusion contributed to Microsoft’s recent decision to switch their emphasis from an “open” model of licensing their DRM to others to a “closed” model of offering a proprietary music store, proprietary jukebox software and proprietary players.

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.

Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.

---

Caution: Marijuana may not be lesser evil
By Rita Rubin
February 6, 2007

Tyreol Gardner first smoked marijuana when he was 13.

“The main reason I tried it was curiosity,” Gardner recalls. “I wanted to see what it felt like.”

He liked what it felt like, and by age 15, he was smoking pot every week. He supported his habit with the money his parents gave him for getting straight A’s on his report card. They didn’t have a clue.

“By 16, when I got my license, it turned into a fairly everyday thing,” says Gardner, now 24. “I believe it is very addictive, especially for people with addictive personalities.”

Millions of baby boomers might disagree. After all, they smoked marijuana — the country’s most popular illicit drug — in their youth and quit with little effort.

But studies have shown that when regular pot smokers quit, they do experience withdrawal symptoms, a characteristic used to predict addictiveness. Most users of more addictive drugs, such as cocaine or heroin, started with marijuana, scientists say, and the earlier they started, the greater their risk of becoming addicted.

Many studies have documented a link between smoking marijuana and the later use of “harder” drugs such as heroin and cocaine, but that doesn’t necessarily mean marijuana causes addiction to harder drugs.

“Is marijuana a gateway drug? That question has been debated since the time I was in college in the 1960s and is still being debated today,” says Harvard University psychiatrist Harrison Pope, director of the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory at Boston’s McLean Hospital. “There’s just no way scientifically to end that argument one way or the other.”

That’s because it’s impossible to separate marijuana from the environment in which it is smoked, short of randomly assigning people to either smoke pot or abstain — a trial that would be grossly unethical to conduct.

“I would bet you that people who start smoking marijuana earlier are more likely to get into using other drugs,” Pope says. Perhaps people who are predisposed to using a variety of drugs start smoking marijuana earlier than others do, he says.

Besides alcohol, often the first drug adolescents abuse, marijuana may simply be the most accessible and least scary choice for a novice susceptible to drug addiction, says Virginia Tech psychologist Bob Stephens.

No matter which side you take in the debate over whether marijuana is a “gateway” to other illicit drugs, you can’t argue with “indisputable data” showing that smoking pot affects neuropsychological functioning, such as hand-eye coordination, reaction time and memory, says H. Westley Clark, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Adolescents have the greatest rates of marijuana use, and they also have the greatest amount to lose by using marijuana, scientists say.

“Adolescence is about risk-taking, experimentation,” says Yasmin Hurd, professor of psychiatry, pharmacology and biological chemistry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York who last summer published a rat study that found early exposure to THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, led to a greater sensitivity to heroin in adulthood.

“All of the studies clearly show the earlier someone starts taking marijuana, the greater their vulnerability to addiction disorders and psychiatric disorders. I’m so shocked still that so many parents are not considering enough the dangers of early drug use.”

Use is more common
Marijuana use by adolescents in the USA declined slightly from 2005 to 2006, but it’s still more common than it was 15 years ago, according to “Monitoring the Future,” an ongoing study by the University of Michigan that tracks people from the eighth grade through young adulthood. It’s paid for by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, or NIDA, part of the National Institutes of Health.

In 2006, 11.7% of eighth-graders said they had used marijuana during the past year, compared with 6.2% of eighth-graders in 1991. Among 12th-graders, 31.5% said they had used marijuana in the previous year; in 1991, 23.9% said they had.

“You are at school, and your main job as an adolescent is to learn and memorize,” NIDA director Nora Volkow says. But if you keep becoming intoxicated by smoking marijuana, she says, you’ll fall further and further behind in your studies. “How are you going to catch up?”

In a study comparing heavy marijuana users with people who’d had minimal exposure to the drug, Pope found that the former had lower verbal IQ scores than the latter. In a 2003 paper, he and his co-authors postulated three potential reasons: innate differences between the groups in cognitive ability that predated first marijuana use, an actual toxic effect of marijuana on the developing brain or poorer learning of conventional cognitive skills by young marijuana users who skipped school.

Wasted years
By the time Gardner was a junior, he started skipping high school regularly to smoke pot. “I would always find somebody who wasn’t at school that day and get high with them,” he says. Gardner says he missed 50 days in the first semester of his senior year. His parents discovered his stash of marijuana and sent him to a psychiatrist. His grades plummeted; his college plans evaporated.

When he was 16 or 17, Gardner says, he was charged at least twice with possession of marijuana and underage possession of alcohol. The court sent him to a three-month outpatient treatment program. He attended weekly sessions and underwent urine checks.

But it didn’t stick. He celebrated the end of the program by getting high on pot and alcohol. By 18, “I was pretty heavy into cocaine,” Gardner says. Crystal meth and intravenous heroin followed.

“I was always looking for the ultimate high. It was like a constant search, and I never found it. … By the end, it was a living hell for me.”

Finally, Gardner says, his parents persuaded him to enter an inpatient treatment program in Winchester, Va. They spoke from experience. When he was 8, Gardner says, his father stopped using drugs while in prison for possession. “My mom got clean while he was in prison.”

Gardner says he has been off drugs and alcohol for 14 months. He works in a Winchester factory that makes patio decking. He graduated high school because a teacher took pity on him and let him try to make up the work he had missed. More than six years after graduating, Gardner hopes to go to college to study psychology.

Research shows marijuana users are significantly less satisfied with the quality of their lives than non-users, a revelation “as telling as any very fancy story of molecules,” Volkow says.

Yet, she says, “I think there is a general sense that marijuana is a relatively benign drug and does not produce addiction.” Although over the past decade, “research clearly has provided unequivocal evidence that … some people can become addicted to marijuana.”

Stephens has conducted seven large treatment studies of marijuana dependence, or addiction. “There’s never any shortage of people who meet this definition,” says Stephens, who edited the 2006 book Cannabis Dependence.

Pot as predecessor
Pope has studied heavy marijuana users, whom he defines as having smoked pot at least 5,000 times, or once a day for nearly 14 years. On average, his subjects, ages 30 to 55, reported having smoked marijuana 20,000 times.

Pope required the volunteers to abstain from smoking pot for 28 days and used urine samples for confirmation.

“We had them rate various symptoms on a day-by-day basis,” he says. “We were able to show there is a clear withdrawal syndrome.”

His research found the most common symptom of marijuana withdrawal was irritability, followed by trouble sleeping and loss of appetite. Symptoms began to subside after a week and disappeared by the end of two weeks.

“We’ve had some people in our study who reported quite a lot of craving. They were quite miserable not being allowed to smoke marijuana,” Pope says, although “certainly, one does not see craving even remotely to the degree you would … with heroin or alcohol or cocaine.”

Marijuana today is more potent and therefore more toxic than marijuana grown in the 1970s, Volkow says. Back then, she says, plants typically contained only 2% THC. Today, she says, marijuana plants typically contain 15% THC.

Even if today’s marijuana is more potent, Stephens says, he’s not convinced that makes a difference.

“The evidence of its increased potency is overrated,” he says. Samples of marijuana grown in the 1970s might have appeared to be less potent than they actually were because they weren’t fresh when tested. And, Stephens speculates, marijuana users might just smoke more of less-potent pot, and vice versa.

A family problem
Rachel Kinsey says drug addiction runs in her mother’s family, although not in her immediate family. Kinsey, 24, started drinking alcohol at 14 and smoking marijuana at 15 — “definitely a predecessor for everything else I used.” She began using Ecstasy and cocaine at 17, then heroin at 18.

“I did graduate high school, and I went off to college, but I withdrew after a month,” says Kinsey, of Richmond, Va. She used the diagnosis of mononucleosis she’d received the week before college as an excuse.

“I don’t think I was ready for the responsibility, and I wanted to continue to use while I was in college. I was at the point where I just didn’t care about college. I was already using heroin.”

She moved in with her boyfriend and his father, both of whom used heroin. At 19, she got pregnant. She moved back in with her mother, substituted methadone for heroin and gave the baby up for adoption. Practically as soon as she delivered, she was back to using heroin.

About five months after her son was born in May 2003, Kinsey entered inpatient addiction treatment. During the 30-day program, she became involved with a man who went back to using cocaine after ending treatment. Kinsey says she didn’t want to go back to using cocaine or heroin, “but for some reason I thought it was OK to drink and go back to smoking weed.”

When she turned 21 in fall 2003, “it was off to the races. For some reason, I felt (turning 21) gave me the right to drink if I wanted to.”

From January to August 2004, Kinsey says, she was charged three times with driving under the influence of alcohol and marijuana.

‘Not worth the risk’
With the help of another stay at a treatment center, Kinsey hasn’t used drugs or alcohol since Aug. 25, 2004, the day after her last DUI arrest. She’s halfway toward graduating from nursing school and works as a nurse tech in a hospital. For the first time, she has signed a lease on an apartment and pays rent.

She can’t drive until September 2008 and then only to work, to school and to 12-step meetings.

If she had to do it all over again, she says, she never would have started smoking marijuana.

“You never know where it’s going to lead you,” she says. “You don’t know that you’re not going to become an addict, so it’s not worth the risk.”

---

New Study Reveals Marijuana Is Addictive And Users Who Quit Experience Withdrawal
By Richelle Putnam
February 6, 2007

Blacksburg, VA (AHN) – Recent studies have concluded that when users quit smoking pot, they do experience withdrawal systems. In addition, those who abuse harder drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, admitted to using marijuana first. Risk of addiction relates to how early in life the user starts.

Marijuana, a mixture of flowers, stems, seeds, and leaves from the hemp plant, Cannabis sativa, can be smoked as a cigarette or in a pipe. THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) is its main active chemical.

Bob Stephens, a Virginia Tech psychologist and editor of the book “Cannabis Dependence,” conducted treatment studies of marijuana addiction, and was quoted in a USA Today article as saying, “There’s never any shortage of people who meet this definition.”

A study called “Monitoring the Future,” performed by the University of Michigan, revealed that adolescent use of marijuana in the U.S. decreased from 2005 to 2006. However, in the past 15 years, marijuana use has become more common. This is according to the same “Monitoring the Future” study, which followed a group of eighth graders into adulthood. USA Today stated that a survey among eighth-graders revealed an increase from 6.2% in 1991 to 11.7% in 2006 regarding marijuana use. 31.5% of the surveyed 12th graders admitted to marijuana use in the past year compared to 23.9% in 1991.

Harrison Pope, director of the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory at Boston’s McLean Hospital, who studied heavy marijuana users for fourteen years, found that those who smoked pot once a day scored lower on their verbal IQ testing.

Research on chronic marijuana smokers and alcoholics performed in 2006 by psychiatry professor, Ronald Kadden, who has run the Health Center’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment Center for over ten years, showed that marijuana was more addictive that originally thought.

However, past studies claimed that marijuana is still the lesser evil of the very much legal drug, alcohol. In a 1999 Summit Daily article, the U. S. Department of Transportation 1990-91 study revealed that the adverse effect on drivers is “relatively small” to the adverse effects of those under the influence of alcohol and some prescribed drugs.

A 2004 study performed by Alyssa J. Myers and Marion O. Petty of the Department of Psychology at Missouri Western State University, researched the connection of alcohol use to marijuana use. The study revealed that, “the more alcohol someone drinks, the more likely they will be to want to smoke marijuana. We also found that 100% of the people who reported marijuana use were also drinkers. The first drug used by the majority of people who smoke marijuana was alcohol, 67%.”

The report also stated that marijuana, a “gateway” drug, is considered worse than alcohol, because it supposedly prods users to try harder drugs. However, the study stresses the use of marijuana typically comes after alcohol and tobacco use and most people don’t realize that alcohol is the “gateway” drug to the “gateway” marijuana drug.

---

Atlanta police officer to face murder indictment
Fulton DA seeks charges in shooting of elderly woman in her home
By BILL TORPY
February 7, 2007

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard will seek felony murder charges against at least one of the Atlanta police officers involved in a botched drug raid that resulted in the shooting death of an elderly woman, the officer’s attorney said.

Defense attorney Rand Csehy, who is representing Gregg Junnier, said he had received an e-mail from Howard’s office Wednesday saying the prosecutor would go before a grand jury on Feb. 26 to seek charges against his client.

It was unclear Wednesday evening whether charges were being sought against other police officers. Eight Atlanta officers were put on administrative leave after the shooting. The November incident prompted a multi-jurisdictional investigation that included state and federal authorities.

Csehy responded angrily to the threat of an indictment against his client. “It’s an overbroad indictment,” he said.

He also complained that Howard’s office acted prematurely and had struck out on its own without consulting with the FBI, which is still investigating the circumstances that led to the shooting. “Paul Howard is no longer part of a joint investigation,” he said.

Howard would not comment Wednesday. Patrick Crosby, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said Howard had not informed his office about any plans to seek indictments.

Csehy conceded that his client may have made mistakes, but he insisted that he didn’t commit a crime.

“There was no malfeasance here, it was sloppy police work,” Csehy said. “It was cutting corners.”

Lyn Vaughn, a spokeswoman for Howard, said the district attorney would not comment on the prospect of seeking any indictments. However, the district attorney expressed outrage over the shooting in a Feb. 6 letter to Markel Hutchins, spokesman for the family of victim Kathryn Johnston.

“The death of Mrs. Johnston constitutes one of the greatest tragedies ever to occur in Fulton County,” Howard wrote. “I will not rest until every person responsible for her death is held accountable. …

“When homicides occur in Fulton County, whether committed by a civilian or a law enforcement official, it is the obligation of the district attorney’s office to take the appropriate legal actions. … The public will not tolerate separate treatment for police officers.”

On Nov. 21, narcotics officers went to Johnston’s home in southwest Atlanta to execute a “no knock” search warrant. Johnston was killed and the three officers were injured in an ensuing shootout.

No-knock warrants are frequently issued so police can get inside before suspects can destroy or dispose of drugs. When the officers kicked in the door, the elderly woman apparently fired five shots from her own revolver.

Her friends and family members contended Johnston, who kept the gun for her protection, was a feeble and frightened woman who rarely ventured outside after dark. And they say that she was never involved in any drug activity. Her family says she was 92, while authorities say she was 88.

Junnier later told federal investigators that officers had lied to a magistrate judge about sending a confidential informant to Johnston’s house to purchase drugs in order to get the warrant.

Atlanta police Sgt. Scott Kreher — who, as president of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, has defended the officers’ actions — called the reports that prosecutors would seek an indictment against the officer “sad.”

“I think any time a law enforcement officer is accused of a crime, we all sit back and wonder what went wrong and look within ourselves in what we do day to day,” Kreher said. “And hopefully, if it’s presented to a grand jury and there isn’t enough evidence, they will send back a no bill.”

Atlanta City Councilman Ivory Lee Young Jr., a vocal opponent of the use of no-knock warrants, said it’s too early to comment on Howard’s push for murder indictments. “That would be as irresponsible as knocking down a door with allegations of drugs, without proof of drugs.”

---

A Change in the Weather
Progressive Dennis Kucinich takes over a new House subcommittee, signaling changes in national drug policy
By DEAN KUIPERS
February 01, 2007

Photo by Steve Appleford The drug hawk’s worst nightmare: Kucinich’s hearings will raise a ruckus

The Democratic sweep in the 2006 mid-term elections has done more than finally install a woman as speaker of the House. It has also put one of the most vocal critics of the ill-starred “War on Drugs” in a position to affect federal drug policy. On January 18, Ohio Congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, one of the most progressive Democratic voices in the House, was appointed as chair of the new House Government Reform and Oversight subcommittee on domestic policy, causing drug reform organizations coast-to-coast to rejoice in hopes that a moment for significant change may have finally come.

This subcommittee replaces the now-defunct Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources subcommittee, which was headed up by staunch drug warrior, Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN). Kucinich will assume many of his oversight duties, including policy oversight of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and appointed Drug Czar John Walters. One commentator on Stopthedrugwar.org crowed that “the responsibility of overseeing the ONDCP has effectively been transferred from Congress’s most reckless drug warrior to its most outspoken drug policy reformer” [his emphasis].

“He is certainly the polar opposite of his predecessor, Mark Souder,” says Allen St. Pierre, spokesman for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML. “Since the time the [ONDCP] was created in 1988, there have always been friendly people in that subcommittee and the ONDCP has always been able to get what they want under the guise of protecting children and saving America from drugs. But Kucinich doesn’t believe any of that. Any of it!”

For instance, St. Pierre notes, Kucinich is a supporter of industrial hemp, the non-psychoactive product of the cannabis sativa plant. He is also a supporter of medical marijuana and of the federal rescheduling of marijuana, where it is currently illegal as a Schedule I drug, classified as having “no medical value.” This classification clashes with states such as California, which have legalized medical use of marijuana, and leads directly to the current rash of raids on medical marijuana dispensaries by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency. Kucinich is expected, St. Pierre says, to be a sponsor of a new bill to be introduced in March that would decriminalize pot.

Washington insiders, however, are not holding their breath for great upheaval in federal drug policy overall. Sources close to the appointment, who asked not to be named, say that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of the Democratic leadership have effectively embargoed major crime or drug policy legislation for the next two years, to avoid looking soft on crime in the 2008 election.

Kucinich, however, is promising a couple years of entertaining and edifying hearings.

“We’re going to open up the discussion to new hearings,” says Kucinich, interviewed Sunday in Culver City, where he presented his bill for Universal Health Care, which is co-sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). “We want to explore the federal government’s policies and the Department of Justice’s policies on medical marijuana, for example. We need to also look at the drug laws that have brought about mandatory minimum sentences that have put people in jail for long periods of time. I think it’s an appropriate time to look at the proliferation of drugs in America, and how that fits in with our health care crisis, and how that fits in with law enforcement.”

The ONDCP did not reply to several requests for comment. That office, however, which is a function of the executive branch, has been deeply involved in pushing heavy sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and resisting medical marijuana, buying big-money ad campaigns attacking marijuana in states trying to legalize at the state level. Controlling that ad money could be a key to reform. When asked if his subcommittee has any budget oversight or other muscle, Kucinich shook his head and added, “No, this committee does not have control of the budgets, but it does have control of the policy, and it can ask questions and get documents that others couldn’t get.”

That can make a difference, says Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, one of the nation’s biggest drug policy reform organizations. His group plans to push for incremental slices of legislation that can move a progressive agenda while not upsetting Democratic unity, adding that Kucinich can “hold hearings on some of the subjects that haven’t been addressed in, you know, decades. Like a hearing on America having the highest incarceration rate in the world. Or maybe a hearing on why the DEA has jurisdiction over medical issues.

“One can obviously empathize with the democratic leadership’s desire to be cautious when it comes to supporting drug policy reforms and other sentencing reforms,” he adds. “But when you have a growing number of Republicans supporting sentencing reform, this might be a good time for the Democrats to show a little leadership.”

In fact, several activists point out, the new Congress may be the most sympathetic to drug-law reform that America has ever seen. Progressives like Senator Richard Durbin and Reps. Pelosi, George Miller, Conyers, Barney Frank, Henry Waxman, Kucinich, and Bobby Scott have all turned up in leadership positions.

“If we had to pick out our 40 best friends in Congress, they’d be disproportionately in leadership positions,” says Nadelmann. He includes Sen. Patrick Leahy on that list, but cautions: “Mind you, seven years ago, Leahy said that sentencing reform was one of the top priorities, but now it’s not even a top-10 priority. Part of that’s because there’s so much other stuff to deal with.”

Still, action on several fronts is expected. Sentencing reform should get some attention, with an aim of reducing the number of non-violent drug offenders currently getting long prison sentences, which has given the U.S. the highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world. One such change would be to make sentences involving crack cocaine equal to those given for powdered cocaine, as community activists have long contended these simply punish the black and poor who are more likely to use the drug in the form of crack. Hearings might also bring new media scrutiny to decades-long marijuana rescheduling motions and several Data Quality Act petitions, which force bodies like the Food and Drug Administration to make decisions based on science rather than ideology, and which have been roundly ignored by the Bush administration.

St. Pierre points out another potential point of influence: High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, or HIDTAs. Congress funnels millions of dollars to local law enforcement for use in these areas, and activists have long argued they are wrongly prioritized.

“That’s a very obscure acronym, but when it comes down to the billions of dollars that get channeled out to local governments and their law enforcement, HIDTA is the battleground. That’s where Dennis can come in and say, ‘Mr. Walters, we the Congress, and, clearly, your own constituents want methamphetamines as the number one priority, not marijuana, and certainly not in the states that have medical marijuana laws.’ A couple of weeks ago, Walters was out in Fresno giving awards away for busting buyers’ clubs. Dennis can clip those wings. It all depends on how he’s going to want to pull the trigger.”

---

Military: No Gitmo guard abuse evident
By MICHAEL MELIA
February 7, 2007

An Army officer who investigated possible abuse at Guantanamo Bay after some guards purportedly bragged about beating detainees found no evidence they mistreated the prisoners — although he did not interview any of the alleged victims, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

Col. Richard Bassett, the chief investigator, recommended no disciplinary action against the Navy guards named by Marine Sgt. Heather Cerveny, who had said that during a conversation in September they described beating detainees as common practice.

In an affidavit filed to the Pentagon’s inspector general, Cerveny — a member of a detainee’s legal defense team — said a group of more than five men who identified themselves as guards had recounted hitting prisoners. The conversation allegedly took place at a bar inside the base.

“The evidence did not support any of the allegations of mistreatment or harassment,” the Miami-based Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in southeastern Cuba, said in a statement.

Investigators conducted 20 interviews with “suspects and witnesses,” the Southern Command said. Bassett did not interview any detainees, said Jose Ruiz, a Miami-based command spokesman.

“He talked to all the parties he felt he needed to get information about the allegations that were made,” Ruiz said by telephone from Miami.

Bassett’s findings were approved by Adm. James Stavridis, the head of the Southern Command.

The investigation began on Oct. 13 and was expanded ten days later to include a similar allegation from a civilian employee who recounted a conversation between a female guard and a male interrogator, according to the statement. Following Bassett’s recommendations, Stavridis said a “letter of counseling” should be sent to the female guard who allegedly initiated a “fictitious account” of detainee abuse.

Bassett also accused Cerveny of filing a false statement during a brief meeting with her at the Marine base at Camp Pendleton, Calif., her boss, Marine Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, said last week.

Vokey, who had filed the complaint about possible detainee abuse to the inspector general’s office that included Cerveny’s affidavit, could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.

---

Making an Example of Lt. Ehren Watada
An eloquent voice of “GI resistance” rattles the war machine
By Norman Solomon
February 7th, 2007

The people running the Iraq war are eager to make an example of Ehren Watada. They’ve convened a kangaroo court-martial. But the man on trial is setting a profound example of conscience – helping to undermine the war that the Pentagon’s top officials are so eager to protect.

“The judge in the case against the first U.S. officer court-martialed for refusing to ship out for Iraq barred several experts in international and constitutional law from testifying Monday about the legality of the war,” the Associated Press reported.

While the judge was hopping through the military’s hoops at Fort Lewis in Washington state, an outpouring of support for Watada at the gates reflected just how broad and deep the opposition to this war has become.

The AP dispatch merely stated that “outside the base, a small group that included actor Sean Penn demonstrated in support of Watada.” But several hundred people maintained an antiwar presence Monday at the gates, where a vigil and rally – led by Iraq war veterans and parents of those sent to kill and be killed in this horrific war – mirrored what is happening in communities across the United States.

Many of the most compelling voices against the Iraq war come from the men and women who were ordered into a conflagration that should never have begun. Opinions may be debatable, but experiences are irrefutable. And the devastating slaughter that the U.S. war effort continues to inflict on Iraqi people has a counterpoint in the suffering of Americans who are left with unspeakable grief.

In direct resistance to the depravity of the Bush administration as it escalates this war, Lieutenant Watada is taking a clear and uplifting position. Citing international law and the U.S. Constitution, he points out that the Iraq war is “manifestly illegal.” And he adds: “As the order to take part in an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as well, I must as an officer of honor and integrity refuse that order. It is my duty not to follow unlawful orders and not to participate in things I find morally reprehensible.”

Watada says: “My participation would make me party to war crimes.”

Outside the fence at Fort Lewis – while the grim farce of Watada’s court-martial proceeded with virtually all substance ruled out of order – the criminality of the war and the pain it has brought were heavy in the air.

Darrell Anderson was a U.S. soldier in Iraq. He received a Purple Heart. Later, he refused orders to return for a second tour of duty. Now, he gives firsthand accounts of the routine killing of Iraqi civilians. He speaks as an eyewitness and a participant in a war that is one long war crime. And he makes a convincing case that “the GI resistance” is emerging and pivotal: “You can’t call yourself antiwar if you’re not supporting the resistance.”

At Fort Lewis, outside the gates, I met Carlos Arredondo. He’s traveling the country in a long black hearse-like station wagon, with big photos and letters from his son Alexander plastered on the sides of the vehicle. At age 20, more than two years ago, Alexander died in Iraq. Now, a conversation with Carlos Arredondo is likely to leave you in tears, feeling his grief and his rage against this war.

“When the Marines came to inform Arredondo of his son’s death and stayed after he asked them to leave, he set their van on fire, burning over a quarter of his body in the process,” the Boston Globe has reported. Carlos and his wife Melida Arredondo are now members of Military Families Speak Out.

Among the speakers at a nearby event the night before Watada’s court-martial began was Helga Aguayo, whose husband Agustin Aguayo is a U.S. Army medic now charged with desertion. After deployment to Iraq in 2004, he applied for recognition as a conscientious objector, without success. During a year in the war zone, he refused to put ammunition in his weapon. Today, he is looking at the prospect of up to seven years in prison.

Many others in uniform are struggling to extricate themselves from the war machine. Information about some of them is available at: www.couragetoresist.org.

Soldiers have to choose from options forced upon them by the commander in chief and Congress. Those who resist this war deserve our gratitude and our support. And our willingness to resist as well.

Ehren Watada faces four years in prison. Half of that potential sentence has to do with the fact that he made public statements against the war. The war-makers want such honest courage to stop. But it is growing every day.

---