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Quick Hits (page 2)

Drug Czar Says Ad Campaign Aimed at Children Has Flopped

By: Vanessa O'connell, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

So much for those flashy TV ads intended to inspire American kids to stay off drugs. The new U.S. drug czar, John P. Walters, says the government's anti drug advertising of recent years has failed. Worse, he fears it even may have inspired some youngsters to experiment with marijuana.

"This campaign isn't reducing drug use," said Mr. Walters, who became head of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy earlier this year.

Mr. Walters was openly critical of the ads even before taking office, and argued that the advertising effort was in dire need of an overhaul. Now, he said, he is armed with survey data that support his suspicions that the campaign hasn't worked.

The five-year-old anti drug program is unusual among public-health advertising because it is funded largely by taxpayers -- $929 million so far -- rather than nonprofit groups or public service spots that media outlets run free of charge. Moreover, Congress enacted an unusual law requiring TV networks, cable outlets, magazines and other media to donate an equal amount of ad space for each ad purchase, effectively doubling the impact of the government dollars.

The so-called National Youth Anti-Drug Media campaign includes more than 212 TV commercials featuring such performers as the Dixie Chicks and hip-hop singer Mary J. Blige, as well as actors posing as drug users. The campaign, developed by some of the best-known agencies on Madison Avenue, was considered a novel step in public health advertising because it was aimed directly at kids. (The ads didn't include the famous "This is your brain on drugs" commercials, a campaign from a nonprofit group that no longer is being used.)

The anti-drug effort is now up for re-authorization for an additional five years. At a time when plenty of government programs are seeking funding, Mr. Walters wants Congress to appropriate for next fiscal year the same $180 million it gave to the campaign this year, though he argues it will be managed more efficiently. He spent much of Monday afternoon placing calls to U.S. lawmakers, national nonprofit organizations and other players in the war on drugs to argue that while the effort has failed to achieve its goals, it deserves continued support.

Changes planned by Mr. Walters include testing all commercials for effectiveness prior to airing them -- a practice that is standard for corporate advertisers. His agency says it hasn't been able to test about 65% of the ads it airs because they often show up at the last minute after it already has committed to purchasing commercial time. In most cases, the government gets the spots not directly from an ad agency but through a middleman ad-industry organization that leans on agencies to donate time, talent and ideas for developing the spots.

In effect, Mr. Walters is attempting to spin some otherwise gloomy news. His office this week intends to release an evaluation of the campaign showing there's little evidence it has had direct favorable effects on youth between 2000 and 2001. In fact, some kids who saw the ads, particularly girls aged 12 to 13 who didn't already use drugs, said they were slightly more likely to smoke pot after seeing the commercials. That finding might be a statistical anomaly.

The evaluation is based on interviews from September 1999 through December 2001 with youth ages 12 to 18 as well as parents. These groups were interviewed separately by an outside research firm that used laptop computers to show them the commercials. Participants were then queried about their intentions to use drugs in the next 12 months. The report represents the most significant effort to measure the effectiveness of the campaign.

The campaign's ads have varied in tone, from uplifting to somber, and were broadcast frequently on TV, particularly during shows that tend to be popular with kids, such as Viacom Inc.'s MTV, sitcoms and professional wrestling matches. One 30-second spot, called "Drawing" by Omnicom Group Inc.'s Merkley Newman Harty Partners, implied that hobbies such as drawing could deliver a natural high. Other ads in the series, which was done by a variety of agencies, were harshly realistic. The 30-second spot "Rodney Harvey" showed snapshots of a model posing as a doped-up addict. The last frame implies he had wasted away to death.

But some of the ads took a soft approach as the government attempted to reach young children. A commercial called "No Skill" from the agency Muse Codero Chen begins with some eerie bongs as background music. A boy's voice asks, "You gonna mess with that weed again?" as young kids shoot hoops and a stoned young boy shows up at a school track meet. "I thought you stopped smoking," the voice says. "Friends," from WPP Group PLC's Ogilvy & Mather, is even less direct. It shows a birthday cake and party hats with the voice of a young boy talking about how friends stick together. The ad ends with the drug agency's logo.

It is unclear exactly why the ads haven't lowered drug use by kids in any measurable way. Anti- smoking campaigns and campaigns touting seat belts have been shown to be effective in getting adults to change their habits.

Mr. Walters suggested that the ads' messages were "too indirect" to have an impact, and speculated that the commercials might be doing more harm than good. "If an ad answers a question that a child doesn't have, there's a chance you'll incite his or her curiosity," he said.

So far, the testing hasn't measured what, if any, impact was made by the most recent group of ads, which link illegal drug use to acts of terrorism. Those commercials feature footage of assault weapons, duct tape and explosives, and imply that the weapons were funded by drug sales in the U.S.

Although traditional advertising has been the centerpiece of the effort, the Office of National Drug Control Policy has been experimenting with other means of getting its message across. For example, the office has been bringing together TV script writers with drug abuse experts in an effort to persuade the creators of TV shows to show drug abuse as a problem that extends beyond poor inner-city neighborhoods

Starved for ad dollars amid an advertising recession now in its second year, the media world initially hoped it could get paid by the anti-drug agency to promote its cause in shows. But the government so far hasn't paid for script development with taxpayer funds.

People familiar with the matter said that if the traditional advertising continues to deliver disappointing results, the office will abandon the program and Mr. Walters will begin to experiment with other ways of reaching young people. He declined to be more specific, adding, "We intend to be more rigorous in our testing." Mr. Walters also suggested he may target older teenagers rather than kids 12 and 13 years old.

According to data cited by the government agency, drug abuse by young people remains stubbornly high. In an annual survey by the University of Michigan released last December, 25% of high-school seniors said they used illegal drugs in the prior month; more than half said they experimented with illegal drugs at least once before graduation.

[Ed note. Only our government would (1) admit to a failed program and then, in the same breath, (2) call for re-authorizing the funding. Sheesh]

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Mary Jane'z Novelties

Growin' Our Own (page 2)

S. F. Haight Ashbury Commune - Trading Guns for Grass

By: Anonymous

Haight Ashbury Commune - Trading Guns for Grass It was a very clear and sunny day as we drove along the Golden Gate Park Panhandle looking for a place to park the 1964 canary yellow, black cloth top convertible Jaguar XKE. My friend's Jag was cluttered with revolvers, pistols, shotguns and rifles. We hardly had any room for ourselves as we were surrounded by all these guns. We got lucky and found a spot to park in the 1800 block on Oak Street. This is along the Golden Gate Park panhandle, across from the Medical Center on Fell Street. We covered the guns with beach towels as we exited the Jag. The Victorian home looked the same as all the others along Oak Street, and I was surprised as I thought it would have a sign or otherwise stand out as being the headquarters for this hippie commune. We walked up the 15 steps of the old San Francisco Victorian house. We rang a buzzer and were greeted by a clean shaven, long blond haired man. This was Steve. Steve was strong, and although he was wearing a clean white tucked in "T" shirt and blue jeans, with well polished black cowboy boots, he looked like he could fit into the Norse Viking from days of old. He had been patiently waiting for us and my friend's guns to arrive.

I came along just for the weed, and to see if I could buy some. I had my cash and was ready to deal. My friend John handed Steve the keys to his Jag as we entered the headquarters of this commune. It was unusual to find a city commune, as I always had been to ones in out of the way places out in the country. Tents, tepees, geodesic domes, hay barns and houses, and places like that, with colorful acid painted buses were my normal idea of communes. Once inside Steve took us to the business room of the multi story commune, which had formerly been a living room with very high ceilings. Now it was adorned with wall hangings of an American flag and many east Indian block prints, diamond shaped God's Eye weavings, colorful tripped out acid paintings, hand woven macrame plant hangers dangling from the high ceiling, and peace signs all around the colorful smoking room. One painting I recall was of Jesus flying in outer space holding the Earth in his left hand and a cross in the other. I asked Steve about this painting and he explained it to me. He said: "It's all in Jesus' hands. He keeps everything in balance. He has control of the universe, the earth, and offers us salvation." I pondered this truth.

Steve invited us to sit down on an ornately designed Persian carpet around a circular coffee table where he had a cookie pan full of separated buds, stems and seeds. He took a bud and broke it up, expertly using a cigarette paper pack to the roll the seeds into their pile on the cooking tray. He said: " We have members up north who are going to grow these," as he lit up his expertly rolled joint of Acapulco Gold. The Gold came from one of his many faded blue paper wrapped bricks and one pound white plastic bags stacked in piles on and near the coffee table. I couldn't help myself and one at a time I lifted a few firmly pressed bricks, rolled them around to view every angle and admired the unique maze of pressed golden colored buds. Steve said he had about 200 pounds in just that room, and the commune had over a ton of this same weed stashed elsewhere. The commune's greasy mechanic came in and took the keys to the Jag where he would drive it around the corner inside a garage and close the garage door to examine the inventory of weapons. The mechanic and others in the commune leadership would examine all the weapons, put a trade and dollar value on them while we kept examining and smoking the weed. It would be a fair trade, guns for grass. How my friend ever got connected to this commune I never knew, but they were for real, boasting over 1,000 members.

I guess Steve was the treasurer and business manager for the commune, whose 1,000 members we were told ranged from professional business people, fishermen, waiters, waitresses and house maids. They shared it all with a division of labor where everybody supposedly helped everybody else, and survived as one giant family. Salaries and wages were shared by all for the good of all. If you needed a mechanic or some other service in a member's line of work it was all free. Members never had issues about money and getting paid as everybody pooled their assets and all labored for the good of this giant communal family.

Another man we met was Ron, who was President of the commune, and commune's mentor. He was a big long dark haired man with a scraggly beard to match. We never mentioned our trade, to Ron and just discussed the weed, and how the commune worked. We were told about how no money transferred hands unless it went into the treasury which was all cash. They never used banks. Everybody worked for free if it concerned the commune or members needs. It was all for hippie love, peace, and free sex. In fact some foxy lady, Sue, walked in from upstairs, and sat down to smoke with us. She was wearing only an eastern Indian print skirt, and her huge ski jump breasts with pink nipples called out to me. She was very different and beautiful. I kept my eyes on her as she smoked with us and acted if she were fully dressed. Her big breasts would lay perfectly on top of the coffee table every time she leaned over to pass me a joint, which I happily accepted. I know this constant nudity was just part of the hippie culture, but it was a part I enjoyed immensely.

I kept wondering why a hippie love and peace commune would want guns, but I put this thought in the back of my mind as I smoked some good ass weed. Steve was a hippie all the way, with his Tarot cards, giving us readings to test that we weren't cops, but I never equated hippies with wanting guns. Steve said our cards read good karma, and we were accepted by them as if we were old time members of the commune. We were welcome any time and we were told we were welcome to any of the commune's women. Finally Steve left us to examine the commune's bricks and bags of weed while he went out a back way to the garage to evaluate the guns with the mechanic. He trusted us or else he knew that with our car inside the commune's closed garage, we couldn't leave with their weed. Anyway Sue was with us entertaining us with her every move as any good hostess would.

Sometime later Steve came back and showed us a black and white handbill about a Haight snitch, an undercover cop. The bill had the cop's picture, badge number, and brief statement about this undercover officer and his activities, and busts in the Haight area. Steve said a guy was in for a rough time if they ever messed with anybody from the commune. I took this as a warning and not as a threat. Steve was just perhaps giving us a reminder that if we were considering crossing the commune and Steve, or had any hanky-panky in mind, or if we had been cops, communal justice would somehow reach us. The indirect warning reached home in my mind. Steve also had one of the revolvers that my friend had brought to trade for the commune's weed. I wasn't worried as we had no bad intentions, brought no ammo, and I expected that the gun still wasn't loaded. My friend negotiated his bargain, they seemed happy over the exchange. Steve said he was keeping the revolver for himself. I decided to buy 4 pounds of Gold for $225. each. Steve had Sue take the bricks of Gold buds, which were now packaged in brown paper bags, out of the smoking room and through some back staircase where they were loaded into my friend's Jag. Before Sue left she scooted over next to me to give me a kiss. I felt her firm heavy breasts and hard nipples press against my chest as I kissed her back. We said our goodbyes. Then Steve gave us a few hits of Sunshine acid for free to show his good will, and we left out the commune's front entrance skipped down the stairs and onto the sidewalk.

Once around the corner we saw the now open garage door on the side street with the Jag parked inside. We entered the garage and got inside the Jag. My friend checked his stash to verify that he got what he traded for and I checked my bag marked with an X. It was all there, and the car was full of the sweet fragrance from the weed. Suddenly Steve came in from another entrance and told us why he wanted the guns. He said, "We help out our black brothers, the Black Panthers over in Oakland and Berkeley. They're always short on guns so we trade for them when we can find them. I'm keeping the one revolver and the rest of the guns are going to our brothers, the Panthers. If you get some more call me." He gave us each the commune's phone number.

Recently I spoke to another old friend and he said he had heard from Steve. He said Steve had called him some years ago from prison. My friend didn't know what he was doing time for. Too bad, as they had a good set up for those times.

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Mike Golden, the Radio Rebel

Pipeline (page 2)

The New Dutch Government and the Possible Consequences for the Coffee Shop System

By: Nol van Schaik

Nol van Schaik What will happen to the Dutch coffee shops under the new government? Will these right-winged people shut all cannabis coffee shops in Holland?

That is about the general content of a question I get asked over and over again, the last few days, through my website and by phone, by press and worried cannabis tourists.

I think I have the answers and the arguments to prove this press created hype is just a hype, as a Dutchman with an interest in our national politics, and as a so-called 'coffee-shop-keeper', offering and selling marihuana and hash through my three registered cannabis shops in Haarlem, the Netherlands.

The facts:

The CDA, Hollands biggest political party after the elections, are the only party against the coffee shop system in the Netherlands. They now have 43 out of the available 150 seats in the Dutch parliament. In order to form a government they need at least two other parties to create a coalition that can govern the country. The best possible partners for the CDA, a conservative catholic party and absolutely non-racist, are the newly risen LPF, List Pim Fortuyn, or LIST (26 seats), and the VVD (24 seats). Together, this coalition would have 93 seats, enough for the required majority in parliament.

The LPF and its recently assassinated leader, Pim Fortuyn, have been portrayed as extremely right-winged by national and international press. This is far from the truth. Pim Fortuyn was an openly gay person who made very blunt statements about his solutions for Holland, and especially about the immigrant problem.

The LIST's second in command is a coloured man, Varela, and there are more cultures represented in the party. They were completely in line with Fortuyn's political view. Pim Fortuyn had a view on coffee shops, too. He saw no problem in them, as long as they pay taxes, and admitted he smoked occasionally after this statement.

The VVD, who are not really keen on being in the new government, have been part of the Purple coalition for the last 8 years, when they were in charge of the parliament. During this period they created and maintained the coffee shop policy as it is still in use today. I do not see how they can change their stance overnight, IF they decide to take part in the CDA's most wanted possibility.

Hollands drug policy is well known throughout the world, and has had a load of criticism over the last decades, especially from the USA and France, but managed to withstand the international pressure. Results and figures have proven the Dutch policy right. The Netherlands still has drug problems, but they have been successfully contained and regulated. This resulted in the 'Dutch system' being the best possible way to handle drugs and their users, focused on the separation of soft drugs (cannabis) and hard drugs (heroin, cocaine, etc.). This separation was meant to keep young people experimenting with cannabis away from the users of hard drugs by allowing the sales of cannabis from registered outlets, the so-called coffee shops.

Even the CDA will not be serious about closing the cannabis shops, as I prefer to call them. The international press is trying to make us believe they will. The reasons for not closing the cannabis shops are numerous, I will mention the most important arguments for maintaining or improving the current policy on cannabis.

Closing all cannabis shops would eventually lead to ending all other experiments with drugs, like the needle exchange and the successful distribution of free heroin to registered problematic hard drug users. This alone would lead to a rapid comeback of petty crime in the streets of the Netherlands, which has been successfully reduced by the Methadon/free heroin program over the last few years.

Closing all cannabis shops would mean that cannabis would get back in the hands of those dealing in all drugs. This would resurrect the dismantled stepping stone theory by shoving soft and hard drugs back together in one corner.

Closing all cannabis shops would also bring back organized crime in the cannabis culture, as they will be the alternative to feed the demand for any drug on the market. Cannabis shops are supplied by home growers on a basis of mutual confidence and trust. Their input is about 75 % of all cannabis in Dutch cannabis shops. Homegrown cannabis has excluded organized crime from the supply line to cannabis shops and foreign hash lost its 95 % market share over the last decade!

Closing all cannabis shops is practically impossible, all Dutch cannabis outlets are registered leisure companies with a permit to sell drinks and snacks. No government can close the businesses as such, they can only try to forbid the sale of cannabis from them. That would cause a problem for the authorities, because the cannabis shops would go back to the old-fashioned way of 'dealing' - through a person at a table in the place who has no connection with the business when asked. That was the way it was done before the so-called cannabis menus were introduced, and that is the way that will always work. It would mean that cannabis shops would not be able to pay tax anymore, as the income from cannabis can no longer be booked in, it would incriminate the entrepreneur. It would take at least two police officers per coffee shop, per day, to try and prevent the sales of cannabis from cannabis shops. The Dutch police force has a chronic shortage of police officers already.

Aiming to close all cannabis shops is going back to the jungle, as the trade in drugs on the street is called, and would ruin all previous efforts made to shape and execute the drug policy as it is today. The Netherlands has had the best results in regulating drugs by far, mainly because the use of drugs does not fall under the justice department, only the trade in drugs is their responsibility.

The use and abuse of drugs are the responsibility of our health department. Their taking part in the drug policy is meant to protect the health of the drug user by offering help and support, in finding or creating a solution for the intended user's drug problem.

Balkenende, the leader of the CDA, and probably our new Prime Minister, has stated he wants to end the 'tolerance culture' in Holland, and mentioned the coffee shops and illegal immigrants in 'black' labor as examples. He never stated he wants to close the Dutch cannabis shops, that is what the press distilled from his words.

Ending the 'tolerance status' for cannabis shops could mean two possible solutions. The first one is the doom scenario the press is creating, the new Dutch government would close all cannabis shops, period. They would have to have good reasons for that, a 'tolerance status' is meant to experiment with something that is actually illegal, but so commonly done that upholding the law on such a situation would be practically impossible.

Prostitution was tolerated for 65 years before it was fully legalized a few years ago. No political party ever tried to forbid prostitution, they always tried to find the best possible way to regulate the flow of commercial sex and the connecting industry.

If the last 28 years of allowing the small sales of cannabis from registered outlets have been an experimental phase, it is about time to end the 'tolerance status', and to act after the outcome of the results of the long-running experiment.

Cannabis shops do not mean any harm to Dutch society, on the contrary, they successfully separate the two markets, cannabis sales only, no hard drugs on the premises. The figures are in favor of cannabis shops, not against them, as many people seem to think. Especially compared to all alcohol outlets in the Netherlands, there is no violence whatsoever in cannabis shops.

If the new government does want to end the 'tolerance status' for coffee shops, they can only go for full legalization, and it would comply with Balkenende's wish - no more tolerance.

The stance of the murdered Pim Fortuyn, the founder of the LIST (LPF), on cannabis shops was very clear. He had no problems with them, if only they pay their taxes. All Dutch cannabis shops pay taxes and all business rates. They also employ a lot of staff, thus contributing to the Dutch society, as any other business.

Ending the tolerance system for cannabis shops can only lead to legalization, not to the enforced closure of the businesses. There is neither legal nor social reason for that, unless Balkenende wants to ruin the best administrated drug policy in the world.

Cannabis entrepreneurs are used to working in a grey area, any adjustment will be made to keep cannabis available through cannabis shops, no matter what it takes.

Nol, www.globalhempmuseum.nl, www.williewortel.org and www.dutchexperience.org.

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Dakota Joseph Arts