>> Read other archived
Cognitive Liberty News
2002 Cognitive Liberty News
December 19, 2002
CCLE Files Freedom of Thought
Brief
in Landmark U.S. Supreme Court Case
The
image of a government agent, with a syringe filled with mind-altering
drugs in hand, advancing on an unwilling and helpless citizen is one of
the darker motifs in modern science fiction. But this very issue is facing
the US Supreme Court in a current case, Sell v. U.S., No. 02-5664, briefed
by CCLE today. The CCLE argues that the freedom of thought at stake in this case is
comparable to the reproductive freedom granted to women by the Roe v.
Wade decision. “Where Roe v. Wade established fundamental
rights with regard to the body, notes Boire, “this case will decide what
protections a person has over his or her own mind and thought
processes.” >> Read More
December 2 , 2002
The
Needle and the Damage Done:
Supreme Court Will Hear Forced Drugging Case
On Nov. 4, the U.S.
Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Dr. Charles
Thomas Sell, a dentist who the government seeks to forcibly inject with
mind-altering drugs. The Center for Cognitive
Liberty & Ethics filed an amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court in
support of Sell. Unlike other parties before the court, the CCLE argues
that this case raises core First Amendment issues governing freedom of
thought. The author of the center's brief, attorney Richard Glen Boire,
notes that "if the government can manipulate thoughts, it need not
manipulate expression; freedom of speech is, so to speak, nipped in the
bud."
>>Read More
November 14, 2002
You Are a Suspect
By WILLIAM SAFIRE (c) New York Times Nov. 14, 2002
If the Homeland
Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:
Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you
buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail
you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit
you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these
transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department
describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."
>> Read More
November 5, 2002
Supreme
Court Agrees to Hear Forced Drugging Case
The US Supreme Court
yesterday [Nov. 4] agreed to hear the case of Dr. Charles Thomas Sell, a
dentist who the government seeks to forcibly inject with mind-altering
drugs. The
Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics (CCLE) filed an amicus curiae
brief with the Supreme Court in support of Dr. Sell.
"When the government invades a person's body in order to manipulate the
mind," says Richard Glen Boire, legal counsel for the CCLE, "even more than
bodily integrity is at stake. This case raises the very important issue of
cognitive liberty—what rights a person has to resist forced manipulation of
his or her thinking."
>> Read More
October
28th, 2002
Knockout Gas Proves Deadly in Moscow
The two-day hostage siege in a Moscow
theatre, where 50 Chechen rebels held 750 people captive in a desperate
act to draw public attention to the ongoing war in their province, ended
in a cloud of knockout gas. The military rescue authorized by Russian
President Putin began the raid by pumping an unidentified gas into the
theatre ventilation system, which debilitated or rendered
unconscious
almost everyone exposed to it.
>> Read More
October 24, 2002
Trial Ordered In Case
of Hallucinogenic Plants
A man
accused of illegally importing into Atlanta jungle vines and leaves to brew
a hallucinogenic tea must stand trial, a federal magistrate ruled Wednesday.
U.S. Magistrate Alan Baverman declined to dismiss an indictment against Alan
Thomas Shoemaker, whose lawyer contended the vines and leaves are legal
substances. >> Read More
October 21, 2002
Federal Bill Seeks to Outlaw Salvia
Divinorum
A bill introduced in Congress on October 10,
seeks to make the Mazatec ceremonial plant Salvia divinorum and its active
principle, salvinorin A, the next outlawed drugs under
federal law. Termed "The Hallucinogen Control Act of
2002," HR
5607 seeks to place the plant Salvia divinorum and salvinorin A into Schedule I
(the most restrictive schedule) of the federal Controlled Substances Act.
>> Read More
October 14, 2002
Censorship In Paradise: New Zealand Thought Police Seize
Books From Loompanics
By Russ Kick
In 1997, Loompanics published The New Zealand Immigration Guide, which spoke
very highly of the beautiful, secluded island-nation. Apparently, New
Zealand will not be returning the compliment.
The government of New Zealand has decided that publications from Loompanics
are not welcome in the country, and it's currently persecuting a married
couple for the "crime" of ordering some books.
>> Read More
September 27, 2002
CCLE
Announces Launch of New
“Cognitive Liberty & Neuroethics” Curriculum
The Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics is pleased to announce that
its new "Cognitive Liberty & Neuroethics" curriculum is now available on our
website. Many academic institutions fail to discuss the topic and importance
of cognitive liberty (the right of each individual to think independently,
to use the full spectrum of his or her mind, and to engage in multiple modes
of thought), even though in today's drug and technology saturated world the
topic of cognitive liberty is of utmost importance to anyone interested in
living in a society where one has the ability to think freely.
>> Read More
September 23, 2002
Celebrate Cognitive Liberty
and the Freedom to Read:
CCLE’s Readers’ Rights Project Announced
In conjunction
with the American Library Association’s (ALA) annual Banned Books Week, the
Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics is launching its
Readers’ Rights Project.
This
year’s Banned Books Week: Celebrate the Freedom to Read—is
the twenty-first anniversary of the ALA’s annual celebration of intellectual
freedom. Events and read-outs will be held nationwide to raise awareness
about censorship and the right to access books. As Judith Krug, director of
the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, says, “The ability to read,
speak, think and express ourselves freely are core American values.”
>> Read More
September
9, 2002
CCLE Update for August 2002
As a service to all those interested in cognitive liberty issues, our
monthly updates present comprehensive yet concise coverage of recent
events and noteworthy projects of the Center for Cognitive Liberty &
Ethics. >>
Read More
September 5, 2002
Report Shows Almost 16 Million Americans
Currently Use Illegal Drugs
Today (September 5, 2002), the US government released the results of the
2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, the primary method of
estimating the prevalence of illicit drug, alcohol and tobacco use in the
US. According to the Survey, in 2001 15.9 million Americans age 12 and
older used an illicit drug in the month immediately prior to the survey
interview.
This represents an
estimated 7.1 percent of the population in 2001, compared to an estimated
6.3 percent the previous year. Additionally, the Survey found that 1.9
million persons used Ecstasy (MDMA) for the first time last year, and that
an estimated 8.1 million persons have tried MDMA at least once in their
lifetime. >> Read More
September
4, 2002
Canadian Senate Committee Calls For
Legalizing Marijuana
The prohibition of marijuana use must end, proclaims a report to be
released today by the Canadian Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs.
The unanimous report hopes to bring Canadian policy into the new
millennium and out of the politically motivated and costly US-led War on
(Some) Drugs. "Scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that
cannabis is substantially less harmful than alcohol and should be treated
not as a criminal issue but as a social and public health issue,”
explained Senator Pierre Nolin, the committee’s chairperson.
>>
Read More
August 22, 2002
CCLE Files Comments with the DEA
Concerning the Agency's Intention to Schedule 2C-T-7
The Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics (CCLE) has submitted written
comments to the DEA opposing the agency’s intent to schedule the
compound 2C-T-7. This compound, was first synthesized by Dr. Alexander
Shulgin in 1981. In July, the DEA filed a Notice of Intent to place 2C-T-7
on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, contending that 2C-T-7 is
a dangerous drug of abuse with no medical value.
>>
Read More
August 20, 2002
CCLE Files Brief in the U.S. Supreme Court
Today, the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics (CCLE)
filed an amicus curiae brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a
St. Louis dentist. Dr. Charles Sell is appealing to the Court
to stay a lower court’s decision to have him forcibly drugged in order
to stand trial. In May, the Eighth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals ruled
that Dr. Sell could be injected with psychotropic drugs in order to make
him “mentally competent” to stand trial for insurance fraud.
CCLE counsel and author of the amicus brief
Richard Glen Boire sees this case as a freedom of thought issue, one that
the Supreme Court has previously located within the First Amendment. “If
government agents, with the concurrence of the courts, can
constitutionally order the forcible manipulation of Dr. Sell’s mind in
order that he may stand trial,” states the brief, “then any accused
defendant…is also at jeopardy of losing his or her First Amendment right
to freedom of thought.” >> Read
More
August 19, 2002
NASA Plans to Read Minds at Airports
Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
have told Northwest Airlines security specialists that the agency is
developing brain-monitoring devices in cooperation with a commercial firm,
which it did not identify. Space technology would be adapted to receive
and analyze brain-wave and heartbeat patterns, then feed that data into
computerized programs "to detect passengers who potentially might
pose a threat," according to briefing documents obtained by The
Washington Times. NASA wants to use "noninvasive neuro-electric
sensors," imbedded in gates, to collect tiny electric signals that
all brains and hearts transmit. >>
Read More
August 15, 2002
The Mouse That Roared:
Calling for an End to the War on Drugs
By
Daniel Forbes
The small,
influential Unitarian Universalist church has issued the rather remarkable
call to: “Make all drugs legally available with a prescription by a
licensed physician, subject to professional oversight.” ... [T]he
statement is clear in its rejection of the stark zero tolerance policies
that have sprung up in so many settings. It contends that use “does not
necessarily mean” abuse or addiction. ... Distinguishing between use and
abuse raises the thorny issue of cognitive liberty, the right to control
one’s consciousness.
>>
Read More
August 13, 2002
Federal Court Rules in Favor of Ayahuasca-using Church
Members of the ayahuasca-using religious group known
as the Uniao Do Vegetal (UDV), won a major legal victory on Monday, when a federal court ruled that the group’s use of ayahuasca
was likely protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
>>
Read More
August, 9, 2002
Scientist's Death Haunts
Family
The death in 1953 of a government
scientist, Frank Olson, in a fall from a New York hotel window, is one of
the most notorious cases in CIA history. Only in 1975 did Olson's family
learn that the CIA had slipped LSD into his drink, days before his death.
President Ford apologized for an experiment gone awry, and promised that the
government would reveal everything about the case. But newly obtained
documents show. . .two of the key officials involved in the decision to
withhold that information were White House aides Dick Cheney and Donald
Rumsfeld, today the nation's vice president and secretary of Defense.
>>
Read More
July 26, 2002
Douglas Rushkoff Joins
CCLE Board of Advisors
The Center for Cognitive Liberty &
Ethics is very honored to welcome Douglas Rushkoff as the newest member to
its Board of Advisors. >> Read
More
July 22, 2002
Blockbuster Depression: Drug
Deals for Drug Makers
Last Sunday (July 14th, 2002), in an
unprecedented alchemy of corporate drug deals synthesized behind closed
doors, a $60 billion transaction allowed Pfizer Inc. to acquire Pharmacia
Corporation, creating the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. With
anticipated annual revenues of $48 billion, the newly concocted
Pfizer-Pharmacia mega-company will have unsurpassed global dominance on some
of the most lucrative pharmaceutical drugs available on the market. The
potential side effects of the merger on consumers, seems to have gone
unnoticed. >> Read More
July 18, 2002
DEA Moves to Schedule
2C-T-7
The US Drug Enforcement
Administration today published notice that it intends to place the drug
2C-T-7 into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. 2C-T-7 is being
scheduled pursuant to the DEA’s emergency scheduling powers, meaning that
the scheduling could take effect in as early as 30 days (August 17, 2002).
>>Read
More
July 16, 2002
Who's Reading Over Your
Shoulder?
I hate the feeling of someone reading over my
shoulder. Not only is it superficially distracting, but it often affects how
I respond to the text. Being conscious of being watched inhibits my thinking
because I find myself reading through my watcher’s eyes.
It makes me suddenly self-conscious, wondering if the stranger is
making faulty suppositions about me based on the book in my hand. The bored
businessman next to me on the train isn’t a big deal, but the thought of
the FBI peering over my shoulder in the public library definitely puts me on
edge. >> Read More
July 8, 2002
Mailed Prozac Causes Stir
The following article discusses
the latest tactic in psycho-pharmaceutical marketing; direct-to-consumer
mailing of drugs. Millions of people say they have benefited from taking
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors like Fluoxetine hydrochloride (the
active ingredient in Prozac). But marketing practices like the one discussed
in this article, in addition to showing the aggressiveness with which major
pharmaceutical companies seek new customers/consumers, raise disturbing
issues concerning corporatized “drug pushing,” and medical privacy.
>>
Read More
July 5,2002
Dangerous Lessons
Last
Thursday’s Supreme
Court ruling, giving public school authorities the green light to
conduct random, suspicionless, drug testing of all junior and senior high
school students wishing to participate in extra-curricular activities,
teaches by example. The lesson, unfortunately, is that the Fourth
Amendment has become a historical artifact, a quaint relic from bygone
days when our country honored the “scrupulous protection of
Constitutional freedoms of the individual.”
>>
Read More
July 2, 2002
CCLE Update for June
2002
As a service to all those interested in cognitive liberty issues, our
monthly updates present comprehensive yet concise coverage of recent events
and noteworthy projects of the Center for
Cognitive Liberty & Ethics. >>
Read More
June 27, 2002
Supreme Court OK's Random
Drug Testing in Public High Schools
Today the United States Supreme Court ruled that
students in public high schools can be forced to submit to random drug tests
as a prerequisite to participating in any after-school activities. The 5-4
decision held that a student’s right to privacy must give way to a
school’s interest in detecting and preventing drug use among its students.
>> Read More
June 21, 2002
CCLE Welcomes
me:me sous rature as the Summer Fellow, 2002
The Center for Cognitive
Liberty & Ethics is happy to announce that me:me sous rature (aka
Mark Bryan) will be serving as our 2002 Summer Fellow. me:me recently
completed his studies in Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of
British Columbia. Under the name Mark Bryan, he successfully developed a
student-led a course entitled Cognitive Liberty: Psychedelic Perspectives.
As
a Summer Fellow at the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics, me:me will
be organizing curriculum and developing teaching modules for cognitive
liberty courses. He will also be preparing the way for these courses to be
introduced in universities across the US, and eventually in other countries
as well. >>
Read More
June 17, 2002
Brain Fingerprinting Feature
Last Friday, (June
14, 2002) the CBS network show, 48-Hours, featured a report on
"Brain Fingerprinting." Also known as "computerized
knowledge assessment," this law enforcement tool raises the chilling
issue of just how far such mentally-invasive techniques could go in
government and private sectors. >>
Read More
June 10, 2002
Cognitive Liberty in
the Classroom
A
unique course recently offered in the Philosophy Department of the
University of British Columbia explored the historical precedent and current
applications of cognitive liberty. UBC student Mark Bryan was prompted to
design this course after years of working within an academic system that
ignored any connection between freedom of thought and altered states of
consciousness, particularly those engendered by psychedelics. “It always
seemed odd to me that the university, a place where freedom of thought is
championed, will deal with an immense range of subjects, yet will pretend
that psychedelics do not exist. Academic freedom was being hindered by the
belief that a certain portion of human thought and activity could be swept
under the carpet,” stated Bryan.
>>
Read More
June 1, 2002
CCLE
Update for May 2002
As a service to all those interested in cognitive liberty issues, our
monthly updates present comprehensive yet concise coverage of recent events
and noteworthy projects of the Center for
Cognitive Liberty & Ethics. >>
Read More
May 31, 2002
Salvia Divinorum Outlawed in
Australia
Effective June 1, Australia
becomes the first country to make the plant Salvia divinorum a
prohibited drug. Pursuant to a ruling by Australia’s National Drugs
And Poisons Schedule Committee (NDPSC), both Salvia divinorum and its
active principle salvinorin A, will be added to Schedule 9 of Australia’s
Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Drugs and Poisons (SUSDP).
Australia’s action raises fears that other governments may soon follow
suit. >> Read More
May 29, 2002
Federal Court
Rules in Rastafarian Case
In an opinion issued Tuesday
by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, some marijuana-using
Rastafarians may be protected under a religious-freedom law passed by
Congress in 1993. >> Read More
May 28, 2002
The Future of Mind Control
The May 23, 2002 issue of the Economist,
has several articles constellated around neuroethics and the future of
cognitive liberty. >>
Read More
May 23, 2002
A Piece of Mind
A
new bookshop caters to those interested in cognitive liberty and brings a
new meaning to "head shop."
Brad Willard has long been a student of
cognitive science and of literature supporting cognitive liberty (the
radical idea that we, as individuals, should have sole control over the way
we think). A few months ago, Willard, part owner of the successful Belmont
Street cafe The Pied Cow, decided to open a cafe-cum-bookshop devoted to the
subject. His new venture is an attractive specialist bookshop of the type
one thought Barnes & Noble had murdered.
>>
Read More
May 22, 2002
The Neuroethics of New
Drugs and Technology
It's another sleepless night at
Stanford University. But unlike the legions of students dozing over
textbooks, volunteers at the Stanford Sleep Disorders Lab have
pharmaceutical help: a controversial new drug called Provigil. The
medication, whose name is an abbreviation of the words "promotes
vigilance,'' keeps the mind fully awake and attentive without the euphoric
"buzz'' or jittery nerves of amphetamines and caffeine. ... The tools
and technologies -- from drugs like Provigil to implantable brain chips,
neuro-imaging techniques and brain-scan lie detectors -- offer new ways to
alter and explore human cognition. But what's safe? What's ethical?
>>
Read More
May 21, 2002
Why A High Society is a Free
Society
By Dr. A.C. Grayling
One measure of a good society is
whether its individual members have the autonomy to do as they choose in
respects that principally concern only them. The debate about heroin,
cocaine and marijuana touches precisely on this. In my submission, a society
in which such substances are legal and available is a good society not
because drugs are in themselves good, but because the autonomy of those who
wish to use them is respected. For other and broader reasons, many of them
practical, such a society will be a better one. >>
Read More
May 6, 2002
Brain Probes Give Rats Their
Marching Orders
Implants can direct
behavior. "Implications are scary," an expert says
Transmitting wireless signals
directly into the brain, a group of scientists has produced the ultimate lab
rat--an animal that can be guided by remote control over fences, up trees,
through pipes and across rubble at distances up to a third of a mile.
>>
Read More
May 3, 2002
CCLE Update for April
2002
Our
bi-monthly updates present comprehensive and concise coverage of recent
events and noteworthy projects of the Center for
Cognitive Liberty & Ethics.
>>
Read More
April 30, 2002
Another Federal Court Okays
Forcible
Administration of Mind-Altering Drugs
Evidencing a disturbing trend, another federal court has
ruled that persons awaiting trial may be forcibly administered mind-altering
drugs by the government in an effort to re-form their thinking and make them
“competent to stand trial.”
Earlier this month, the Center for Cognitive Liberty &
Ethics filed an amicus brief in a similar
case (U.S. v. Sell), arguing that such forced drugging by the government
violates the fundamental right to cognitive liberty, makes a mockery of the
“presumption of innocence,” and is contrary to other basic principles
underlying the Constitution and the judicial system. >>
Read More
April 25, 2002
Junk Science in Service
of Junk Drug Policy
Study Finds that Flawed
Studies of Ecstasy-Users' Brains Have Been Exploited to Fuel the War on
Drugs
The British magazine New Scientist
recently asked the question "Ecstasy: How Dangerous is it Really?"
The answer, found New Scientist, is that no one really knows. Further, the
magazine found that any answer to the question is likely based more on
politics than on science.
After a thorough re-examination
of the brain scans that have become the centerpiece of the U.S.
government-led "war on ecstasy," New Scientist concluded "certain
high-profile studies claiming ecstasy causes lasting damage are based on
flawed brain scans." The war on ecstasy has been built on junk science.
>> Read More
April 8, 2002
CCLE Fights
Government's Forced-Drugging of Dentist
Today, the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief with the Eighth
Circuit Court of Appeals asking the court to reconsider its recent decision
permitting the government to continue forcibly injecting a St. Louis dentist
with mind-altering drugs. >> Read More
March 22, 2002
Nixon's Prejudices:
30-Year Anniversary of Federal Commission's Call to Legalize Marijuana
Thirty years ago today, the National
Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse ("the Shafer
Commission"), appointed by President Nixon, released its landmark
report, "Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding." Nixon’s rejection of the Shafer
Commission’s decriminalization recommendation has resulted in the arrest
of 15 million Americans since 1972. >>
Read More
March 19, 2002
Forced Drugging OK'd By Federal Court
Defendants can be forcibly drugged even though
they haven’t been convicted of any charges and pose no danger to
themselves or others. That’s the ruling issued March 7, 2002, by the
Federal Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in the case of United
States v. Charles Thomas Sell. The 2 - 1 split decision establishes
government power to forcibly medicate a person with mind altering drugs
even before trial. >> Read More
March 15, 2002
Government Admits
Spying on Drug Reformers
According to a report issued by the
National Drug Intelligence Center in December 2001 and recently made
available on the NDIC Web site, the government has been monitoring 52 Web
sites in search of individuals and groups who use the Internet to
"promote or facilitate the production, use, and sale of MDMA, GHB,
and LSD." The report, titled "Drugs and the Internet: An
Overview of the Threat to America's Youth", acknowledges that a
majority of the sites monitored (32 of 52 sites) were "probably
operated by drug legalization groups.">>
Read More
March 12, 2002
The Process is Part of the
Punishment:
Arundhati Roy Jailed for Thinking Differently
Internationally renowned author
Arundhati Roy is a vocal critic of the Indian government's anti-democratic
policies, most recently in regard to the controversial Narmada Dam
project. Roy was jailed over her affidavit comments to the Indian
Supreme Court wherein she called attention to "a disquieting
inclination on the part of the court to silence criticism and muzzle
dissent, to harass and intimidate those who disagree with it."
>>
Read More
March 7, 2002
Distinguished Harvard Law
Prof. Speaks
Openly About His Use of Marijuana & LSD
Professor Charles Nesson of Harvard
Law School is one of the country's leading authorities on evidence law and a
maverick in encouraging his law students to go beyond status quo legal
thinking, to challenge authority, and to fearlessly innovate. >>
Read More
March 4, 2002
Is Taking a Psychedelic an Act of Sedition?
The March-April 2002 issue of Tikkun
Magazine has an interesting article by Charles Hayes
in which he explores cognitive liberty and psychedelics. His article
examines the multiplicity of possible individual and social contexts for
taking psychedelics, and some possible meanings of the act post 9/11.
>>
Read More
March 1, 2002
John
Perry Barlow Speaks
The co-founder of the
12-year-old Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
[and Alchemind Society Advisor] tries not to be bleak. But he sincerely
worries that Microsoft will usurp e-commerce and AOL Time Warner will seize
media, and the two forces will extinguish dissenting voices in a
"diabolical" plot to own the economy and the human mind.
>>Read
More
February 15, 2002
The
Strange Case of Mark Niemoeller
By Travis
Dunn, Alternet
Mark Niemoeller, 46, of Columbus, Ind., decided to give up
farming in 1987. With money loaned to him by a friend, Niemoeller set up a
mail-order business that he ran from his family farm. The business, JLF
Poisonous Non-Consumables, began with the sale of one product: Amanita
muscaria mushrooms. ...Then on Jan. 28, police arrested Niemoeller and
served him with a 13-count federal grand jury indictment. Niemoeller spent
the night in the Marion County jail. On March 18, he will stand trial in a
federal district court in Indianapolis.
>>
Read More
February 8, 2002
35 New Phenethylamines
Outlawed in UK
While most of Europe is easing drug
prohibitions, and the UK is considering downgrading the legal controls on Cannabis,
a new amendment (effective February 1, 2002), outlaws 35 new
phenethylamines, most of which were originally created by Dr. Alexander
Shulgin. >> Read More
February 7, 2002
Citing
Free Speech Rights, Louisiana Court Rejects Government's Extremist Tactics
in Culture War Against Raves
NEW ORLEANS--In a ruling the American Civil Liberties Union called a
"major victory" for free speech rights, a federal judge on
February 5,
permanently blocked federal agents from banning masks, pacifiers, and
glow sticks at a local dance venue as part of its nationwide war against
rave concerts. >> Read More
February 1, 2002
Pricey
Prime Time Propaganda:
Anti-Drug Adverts and the Super Bowl
As
approximately forty percent of American households are gearing up for game
day, the Drug Czar and his Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)
are prepared to make use of the Super Bowl’s enormous audience to
disseminate a damaging and discriminatory message: if you use illegal drugs,
then you support terrorism. The ONDCP has reportedly purchased two 30-second
spots for the whopping price of $1.6 million apiece. Touted as being the
biggest single-event government advertising buy in U.S. history, it is clear
that this campaign means business. >>
Read More
January 18, 2002
Report Says Federal Ecstasy Bill
Targets Raves And Violates Civil Liberties
CALIFORNIA – A report
issued by the nonprofit Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics, finds
that the Ecstasy Prevention Act, which is currently before Congress,
unconstitutionally profiles electronic music listeners, misappropriates
federal funds to communities willing to outlaw “raves,” and perpetuates
a failed and harmful “lock ‘em up” policy with respect to those who
use the popular drug MDMA (Ecstasy).
>>
Read More
January 16, 2002
California Senate Ecstasy
Bill Dead; Assembly Bill Weakened
On Tuesday, January 15, 2002, the
California Assembly and Senate Public Safety committees held hearings on AB
1416 and SB 1103. Identical in content, these bills not only proposed to
class Ecstasy as a Schedule I drug, they also threatened to impose a 90-day
mandatory minimum sentence for using or being under the influence Ecstasy.
Attorney
Richard Glen Boire, of the Center for Cognitive
Liberty & Ethics, joined representatives from several organizations,
including the Drug Policy Alliance, in opposition to the bills.
>>
Read More
January 14, 2002
Drug Squad Fumes As Bookshop Shields
Reader
Prize-Winning US Writers Queue Up To Defend Privacy
Of Customer Who Bought Uncle Fester's Illicit Manual
It never won a Pulitzer or appeared on the New York Times bestseller
lists but a 400-page book about the manufacture of illicit drugs by an
author known as Uncle Fester is at the center of a legal battle over the
privacy of the US book-buying public. In what has been described as a
landmark case for the US book industry, the Tattered Cover bookshop in
Denver, Colorado, has spent 18 months resisting the attempts of both police
and courts to obtain the identity of a customer who purchased Uncle Fester's
opus, Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Drug Laboratories.
>>
Read More
January 9, 2002
Liberty & LSD
By John Perry Barlow,
co-founder
of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and member of the CCLE's Board of Advisors
Over
the last 25 years, I've watched a lot of Deadheads, Buddhists, and other
freethinkers do acid. I've taken it myself. I still do occasionally, in a
ritual sort of way. On the basis of their experience and my own, I know that
the public terror of LSD is based more on media propagated superstition than
familiarity with its effects on the real world. I know this, and, like most
others who know it, I have kept quiet about it. >>
Read More
January 4, 2002
California
Renews Effort to Add 90-day Mandatory Minimum for Using or Being "Under
the Influence" of MDMA (Ecstasy)
The California legislature has renewed
its efforts to pass a bill (SB 1103) that threatens to: (1) make it a crime
to be “under the influence” of MDMA (Ecstasy) anywhere in California,
and (2) make MDMA a Schedule I controlled substance in California. Those
convicted of being “under the influence” of MDMA anywhere in California
would be punished by a mandatory minimum of 90 days in county jail
(and up to a maximum of 1 year in jail).
>>
Read More
