THE HIGH TIMES INTERVIEW: ARNOLD TREBACH.

by Jon Gettman. (High Times, march 1992)

Arnold S. Trebach is an internationally well-known expert on drug policy reform. He is president and founder of the Drug Policy Foundation (in 1986) and professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Society at American University in Washington, DC. His books include "The Heroin Solution" (1982) and "The Great Drug War" (1987).

HIGH TIMES: Why did you found the Drug Policy Foundation?

ARNOLD TREBACH: I really wanted NORML (National Organization for the Reform on Marijuana Laws) to expand, to became somethimg else. I wanted them to deal with other drugs and to become more scholarly, but it didn't seem in the cards.I felt there had to be a new kind of scholarly, professional group that would get into the fray along with whomever else was out there. The hope was that I would set up something that would be a new respectable center of what I call the loyal opposition.

HT: What would you like to accomplish with the DPF?

AT: I'd to make the idea of opposition to the drug war decent and respectable. What flows from that is a whole series of programs showing that there is a very respectable opposition, built upon a scholarly base.

HT: I noticed you teach a course called "Drugs and Consciousness".

What do you cover?

AT: The course is called "Drugs, Consciousness and Human Fullfillment". It is part of a curriculum on drug policy that I set up at America University in Washington, DC. It's all appoved and in the curriculum of my department, which is the Department of Justice, Law and Society in the School of the Public Affairs. This particular course looks at issues of consciousness, consciousness alteration and matters of drug policy, all tied into one.

HT: How does this course affect the students' attitudes about drug abuse?

AT: The great majoriy of the students say that my course do not affect their drug use in the least. They've already made up their minds. They find the course interesting or annoying, as the case may be. Only a minority are affected. I'd say ten or eleven percent say they cut down drug use because of what they learned. Two or three percent say they increased it. I talk a lot about heroin and other though addictions, and the one drug that has been most affected, tobacco. I didn't know that would happen. I don't talk about it that much. But what I say is that is very likely that an injecting heroin addict has an easier time quitting than a tobacco smoker - because of what heroin addicts have told me.

That happened to me, by the way. My study of heroin addicition helped me kick tobacco. The dynamics are the same.

HT: How do your students react to the government's publications?

AT: I think the government's got a job to do - explaining to my students - and probably to many students - why it lies so consistently about drugs. The students look at the stuff and they say, 'Oh, come on, the government wouldn't put this stuff out. There must be some explanation for this.' And they look at me, 'Why does the government keep doing this? Why does the government keep lying, and why does the government have a drug policy that is so harsh?'. The want me to explain it. And that's a tough one for me.

HT: What do you think about the ongoing policy to encourage colleges to crack down on illegal dug use by students?

AT:To me the purpose of the law really is to say tehre are criminal drug laws and we aspect every social institution on the American scene to be their enforcers - including the universities which have traditionally dragged their feet. To me, and to many people in the university life, what hey're attempting to do is an outrage, just another in a long series of outrages.

HT: Consistent in all your work are powerful human interest stories.

Why do you find so important to present the human aspects of the drug war?

AT: The most important aspects are what government policies do to real human beings. There are some horrendous stories out there connected with the impact of the drug laws and drug enforcement, and those are the things that reach me - not statistics.

HT: What do you think about drug users in general?

AT: When you talk of drug users, supposedly, no one gives a damn about them. In general I find drug users, certainly pot users, to be non-

threatening people. I don't find them to bad citizens. They're treated as people to whom nothing but the worst should happen. I think that's just preposterous. I guess I've known some bad drunks, I've known some bad heroin addicts, but in general I start out with the feeling that they're just good folks.

HT: Who are the victims today that are being overlooked, ignored or otherwise abandoned, that have suffered from drug war?

AT: I suppose I think of two interesting groups of people - sick people and the police.

HT: How are sick people victims of the drug war?

AT: We have large groups of sick people denied adeguate pain relief, anxiety relief, or relief from symptoms of disease because we fear that dope fiends will get these sustances. We deny medical marijuana to an old lady dying of cancer because of the poossibility that her grandson might get the wrong idea about pot and smoke some in the schoolyard.

These are the kinds of perversion that are out there. AIDS patients are helped by medicinal marijuana - they may even be helped by heroin or other drugs. I think it is terrible that we dany it to them. If this situation continues, we all may be subject to the terrible, terrible problems of AIDS.

HT: What this say to patients?

AT: The current drug policy says if you use intravenous drugs, you deserve to die. It is that simple. Since AIDS has no real antidote, with don't know what to do with it. This means that the possibility of large numbers of people dying from it increases - the drug policy didn't cause it, the drug policy just pushes it along. We won't provide adequate protection for people using drugs - we won't provide them with clean, disposable needles, we won't provide them with medical drugs, and we push them into continued deviance. The greatest threat of this policy being the spread of AIDS, large numbers of heterosexual, non-drug-

injecting people will face the possibility of AIDS because of this. They will die because the White House is so full of hate and hysteria about drug users.

HT: You also mentioned the police as victims - what about them?

AT: The police are often assailants, they often create victims - we are throwing police into a situation they can't control really causing an enormous amount of trouble for an enormous number of police officers.

HT: What's changed in your thinking over the last few years?

AT: If you got rid of all the drug laws tomorrow morning at nine o' clock, we'b be better off. I'd be scared, but I'm more scared about what's going on now. Drugs are a threat, but hate, anger, bullets, knives and police brutality are all greater threats. I conclude that I would now accept full legalization of everything, and then we have to rely on persuasion, education and treatment - not criminal law - to fight drug aduse more successfully than we are today. In the end, the good people of society must maintain their belief taht, ultimately, a democratic society will stumble upon a fair drug policy.

A TALE OF TWO CONFERENCES by Peter Gorman. (part 1) (High Times, march 1992)

The DPF's 4th annual conference officially began at 9 am on november 14, 1991 in Washington, DC.

"We've got a lot to celebrate this year," Trebach begin. "Proposition P -

to make medical marijuana available in San Francisco - just won a landslide 80% vote. NIDA (National Institute of Drug Abuse) has just decided to fast-track Ibogaine, a drug which may reduce heroin and cocain addiction. Joey Tranchina is here from AIDS Brigade, thanks to a jury which refused to convict him on charges of exchanging needles for drugs addicts." However, Kevin Zeese, the DPF's vicepresident, reminded the audience that the number of people currently in the US prison system is higher than other country in the world, that forfeitures are taking place at a greater pace than ever before, that more and more mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines are being enacted and that federal monies will soon be tied to legislation controlling a variety of state licenses. "In other words,: Zeese said soberly, "the drug war is alive and well." The second session of the opening day, "The International Scene", featured a number of European experts on harm reduction. A member of the Swiss Anti-Prohibitionist League e

xplained: "Our policy is to reduce the harm done by hard drugs to both the individual and the community. Buying, having and using drugs are not policeable offenses." With the ecception of these first sessions, the DPF conference was organizes as a series of panel discussions on specific topics, ranged from drug testing to needle exchange to mind espansion.

The National Drug Strategy Network workshop promised the appearance of two distinguished liberals: former Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern and former Congressman Pete McClosky. "I'm pleased that this group is trying to introduce an important issue," McGovern said, "It's my own feeling taht it would be a good time to replace the drug war with sometthing more constructive." McGovern did also note that "the cure offered in the drug war today has probably been more harmful and done more damage than the disease."

The next day, 20 activists of the Green Panthers and the Cannabus Action Network (with Elvy Musikka, glaucoma sufferer and the first woman to receive federal medical cannabis) organized a medical-

marijuana action in front of the Health and Human Services Building.

They unfurled a banner, chanted "No pot, no peace!" and two activists handcuffed themselves to the front door of the HHS building.

The afternoon session began with a panel chaired by New York State Senator Joseph Galiber, a Democrat from the Bronx who is one of the few politicians to come out for the legalization of all drugs. His plan would have marijuana sold in liquor stores, other drugs available in controlled-substance outlets and the hardest drugs available through doctors. "In the short terms," he said,"I believe we would stop the violence. In the long term, I believe that with education and counseling we'd see a lesser number of addicts on the streets." The most emotional session of the afternoon (and as it turned out, of the entire conference) was the medical-marijuana workshop. Chaired by Dr. Lester Grinspoon of the Harvard Medical School, the panel included Robert Randall, Barbra and Ken Jenks and Irving Rosenfeld - who represent 25% of the people in the USA receiving legal cannabis from the federal government. The discussion meandered from morality to methods to approachers - whether it would be better to accept medical mari

juana or hold out for full cannabis lagalization - and seemed a long way from the real issue at hand until a woman named Jo Daly took the floor. Daly introduced herself as the former Police Commissioner of San Francisco (1980-86) and said that in the 1988 she was diagnosed with cancer of the colon. She reported: "As a cancer sufferer, I can tell you that in the past three years hundrends of people have told me they use marijuana medically. But they also say they don't dare come out in public and admit it. And I don't think we're going to have medical marijuana until they do."

The third day of the DPF conference started at 11 am with Milton Friedman, PhD, Nobel Laureate, former economic advisor to President Reagan, Libertarian and the recipient of the DPF's 1991 Drugpeace Award.

He stunned many in the audience with his capitalitstic rhetoric.

"The war on drugs is a failure because it's a socialist enterprise," he lectured. "It's inefficient, expensive, profitable for those at the top and does an enormous amount of harm to a lot of people. The major source of getting bad programs out of the way is private competition.

Unfortunately, the private competition which occurs here is not quite so harmless. We are likely to see more progress agains the war on drugs if we recognize its link to the broader problem of cutting down the scope and power of the government and restoring it to the people."

After lunch, these were the afternoon sessions: the battle over the needle exchange, the disproportionate effect of the the drug war on minorities, prison crisis, disappearing legal rights, mind expansion. Each panel represented another front on the drug war, and each featured speakers who presented figures and stories that were stunningly depressing.

The awards ceremony, which followed the banquet, was co-hosted by Trebach e Zeese. The list of this year's recipients (each received $ 10,000, except for Friedman who was awarded $ 100,000) began with Ken and Barbra Jenks, winners of the Award for Achievement in the field of Citizen Action. Introduced by C. Randall as "people who have changed the way America looks at marijuana as a medicine," the couple described how they were introduced to marijuana three years ago by an AIDS patient who has since died. "Before he left, he gave me some seeds," Ken said. "I had no idea that anything of this nature could grow from this experience. I'd like to thank you all for giving us a new outlook." Barbra, tired and brave, followed with the quip: "I'll let him keep the plaque; I'm going to keep the money." (On March 28, 1992, at the age of 25, Barbra Jenks, with Kenny lying at her side, died at sunrise. Months earlier the Florida Supreme Court ruled that for her marijuana was a drug of medical necessity in treatment of AI

DS. In the final two years of her life, she did more to improve the lives of AIDS patients than all the greedy grant hogs at the National Institutes of Health.) The Award for Achievement in the field of Scholarship and Writing went to noted psychiatrist Dr.Thomas Szas. "I think the time has come to confront the menace of a medical profession which has enthusiastically embraced the mandate of monitoring and managing our lives on behalf of a meddling state," Szas said in his acceptance speech.

"Doctors have increasingly become soldiers in a misguided war on drugs. Until we disarm the doctors, will shall be helpless to stop America's tragic crusade against personal autonomy and individual responsibility masked as a quest for health." The Award for Achievement in the field of Law presented to Robert W.

Sweet, a US District Judge who has called for the legalization of all drugs and who recently struck down a federal law against the sale of drug paraphernalia. "The drug war has failed," the New York judge said. "I know you share my that only through personal responsibility, education and care can those who are affected by drug use be helped.

What we need is the courage to face reality and the compassion to do something about it." The Award for Achievement in the field of Control and Enforcement was given to Nicholas Pastore, chief of Police of New Haven Connecticut, who is trying to change the direction of policing in America.

The Award for the Achievement in the field of Medicine and Treatment went to George Clark, the director of the Prevention Point, the San Francisco needle-exchange organization wich has, in the past three years, collected 600,000 syringes in its efforts to stop the spread of AIDS among intravenous drug users.

The final Award of the evening, the Drugpeace Award for Outstanding Achievement in the field of Drug Policy Reform, was bestowed upon Milton Friedman.

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