From: Dana Beal

Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 12:28:46 -0500

Subject: [mayday] MMM 2004 #4: Crystal meth hits NYC!; Bergen, Kristiansand, Oslo,
Stavanger, Trondheim Make 109 Cities on the MMM Poster for 2004!

So far, 109  Cities are Signed up for 2004 .

MAYDAY IS JAY-DAY!

(Next year, the first Saturday of May falls on May 1. We are recommending Sunday, May 2 or Monday May 3 in cities where there is significant conflict with other local events--or as a rain date. Of course, we understand that some schools have to do it on 4/20 because their school year is over by May, and that some northern cities have to do it a little later in May...)

albany
albuquerque

amsterdam

ashland

auckland

basel

bergen

berlin

berne

boone

bratislava

buenos aires

buffalo

burlington

capetown
christchurch
cincinnati
cleveland

cologne

columbia

dallas

darwin

dayton

des moines
detroit
dover

dublin
dunedin
eugene

fairbanks

fayetteville

flint

frankfurt

ft. lauderdale

geneva

halifax

hearst

helsinki

hilo
houston

hull

kansas city

kingston

kristiansand

lansing

las vegas

lausanne

lebanon

leon

levin

london

lucerne

mexico city

minneapolis

missoula

moscow

montpelier

napier

nashville

newark

new orleans

new york

nimbin

ogden

omaha

orlando

oslo

paducah

paris

parkersburg

perth

philadelphia

phoenix

portland

portland

prague

raleigh-durham

rapid city

richmond

roanoke

rosario

sacramento

salt lake city

san diego

san francisco

san juan

san marcos

spokane

springfield

stavanger

st. louis

sturgeon falls

tampa

tel aviv

thunder bay

toronto

tokyo

traverse city

trondheim

tucson

tupelo

turku

upper lake

vancouver

washington, d.c.

wellington

wichita

wilmington
zurich

Help us reach our goal of 300 cities worldwide!

To get on the poster for 2004--"Mayday is Jay Day"--check yr contact info and email me back telling me to add yr city to the List at the top of this email. By the way, I lost about three weeks email not long after last year's event, and have had intermittent email service since that time.. Did anything happen on the first Saturday of May in your area? Numbers? Arrests? Media? Anything of interest happen, etc?

You can also call me at 212-677-4899--or leave a message on 212-677-7180.

Dana/cnw

P.S.: We are also interested in adding to our list of prestigious endorsers, which consists of pot activists well-known in their city or country. We need a name and phone number for each. Any suggestions?

P.P.S: We need on average $100 for each affiliate to print  and ship this year's poster.  If you can't send it, we have to raise it somewhere else.

 

HELP RAISE MONEY FOR THE MILLION MARIJUANA MARCH--BOOK A YIPPIE SPEAKER!

Recently we wrote you that we need on average $100 for each affiliate to print  and ship this year's poster--and that if you can't send it, we have to raise it somewhere else.

You can help. Go to http://www.yippiespeakers.com  Here's the good news: 20% of all speaker fees go to printing and operating expenses for the MMM 2004. (If you can get me booked personally it's 100%.)

Some of these speakers like Grace Slick and Hunter Thompson get $25,000 just for appearing at yr local university! (Some like Dennis Peron are available for a few thousand) Your local group gets 4% finders' fee.

What we need you to do is contact yr local on-campus activists and have them agitate their student affairs folks in charge of outside speakers  (or equivalent) to book some of our speakers. It's important to clarify that we are NOT  asking them to get this from the budget of their NORML or SSDP chapter, but from the campus office that books outside speakers. (At Kent State they call it the Office of Student Life, and they paid me $4,000 for a three hour appearance, which went straight to the printer.)

It's a good year for it. Things have come full-circle for Yippie! We have all the elements--an illegitimate  Republican President everyone hates at home, a quagmire war abroad--for the first time  since the '70's. And best of all, even though all our speakers support cannabis and oppose the drug war, they are Yippie, not legalization speakers, so you won't have to deal with demands from the university administration that you find some anti-drug speaker for "Balance" or you don't get the booking. (Since we are moving toward protests against the Republican Convention in NYC next August, to be fair they'd have to demand an opponent of protests, period, which is absurd.)

If you have a hot prospect,  email me right back; but since  about half of everything sent to this address "bounces", be sure to also put in a call to the speakers bureau at 212-677-7180, and leave a message if no one picks up.

Dana/cnw

*****!!!Cannabis Liberation Day--Mayday Weekend 2004:  Updates,  Reports!!!*****

From: post@...

Norsk Organisasjon for Reform av Marihuana Lovgivningen
Hjelmsgt. 3, 0355 Oslo        22 46 39 84 / 99 32 59 61
http://normal.no                  mailto:post@...
 

Hi Dana:) Ifyou could sign Oslo, Trondheim, Bergen, Stavanger and Kristiansand. Five cities in Norway.
 

Thankz

-----

From: shane@...

WE SHALL BE MEETING OUTSIDE THE COURT AT 1.30pm.  Court is 8-9mins walk
from London Bridge station.

The 6th Annual Cannabis March and Festival

15/01/04 No embargo.                News Release           
                           
Lambeth Council Charge Cannabis Festival Licencee.

2pm  Wednesday 21st January. Court 2.  Tower Bridge Magistrates Court, 211
Tooley St, London.
- .

Lambeth Council have summonsed Shane Collins, Cannabis Carnival Licencee
and Green Party London Assembly candidate, to Tower Bridge Magistrates
Court, 211 Tooley Street, at 2pm Wednesday 21st January 2004.. 

The charge is over licensing violations at the Cannabis Carnival held on
4th May 2003 at Brockwell Park, Brixton.   The Council allege a sound
system was turned on 10 minutes after the licence permitting it.

The case has been adjourned from Wednesday 26th November when five Council
employees and four festival organisers gave evidence.  A charge of selling
alcohol after time was dropped.

If the festival is found guilty then Lambeth Council will have succeeded in
stopping the march and festival happening in Lambeth.  Mr Collins is
pleading not guilty. 

The free event, which was attended by 10 - 15,000 people, was one of 318
happening on the same day around the world.  The organisers will be putting
on the 6th annual march next 8th May 2004 and hopefully a free festival as
well.

In taking this action the Council are in effect threatening one of the
organisers of a free event with imprisonment and stopping the event
happening next year in Lambeth whilst attempting to limit the freedoms of a
prominent campaigner for the legalisation of cannabis
 
Shane Collins, Festival Licencee and Green Party London Assembly Candidate
said  "This was a free event to protest at the continued prohibition of one
of natures most useful plants and a call for the huge trade in cannabis to
be regulated and legalised.  Reclassification will simply ensure the this
trade remains in 'criminal' hands where disputes get settled violently and
not through the small claims court..  This event is about getting dealers
off the streets and into cannabis cafes and separating supply of cannabis
from heroin and crack. Scores of people worked, unpaid, for six months to
bring this event together.  In a sane society we might be applauded,
instead the Council is spending taxpayers' money to prosecute me for our
efforts'.

-ENDS-

For further information contact Shane Collins 0280 671 5936,   07952 929
710 or shane@...

Notes to the Editor.
1. Maximum sentence for the licensing violations is 6 months prison and
£20,000 fine.
2. In 2003 Cannabis Marches took place in 318 cities world wide and are
again planned for May 8th 2004.
3. The 1997 UN Drug Report put the trade in illicit drugs as the third
largest in the world after oil and arms.
4. We estimate the Court Case is costing Lambeth Council around £30,000.

We are awaiting a more detailed figure from Lambeth Scrutiny Committee.

---------------

From:  "Alberto M. Giordano" <narconews@h...>
Date:  Thu Jan 15, 2004  11:57 am
Subject:  Venezuela Decriminalizes Drug Possession


January 15, 2003
Please Distribute Widely

Dear Colleague,

The new participatory journalism model of Narco News is soon to emerge from
the lab. Meanwhile, here's some breaking news from our beat, that I've
posted as an entry on my weblog:

Venezuela Decriminalizes Drug Possession

http://www.bigleftoutside.com/archives/000313.php

Today's neo-libertarians, if they truly believe what they claim to believe
about freedom, really need to take a second look at Venezuela and it's
president Hugo Chávez.

The democratically-elected government of Venezuela has survived attempted
coups - military, economic, and mediatic - and keeps moving forward with the
most sweeping reforms and advances in democracy and human rights in the
hemisphere today.

The latest: a reform of the penal code that, while increasing penalties for
drug traffickers like every other country, has just decriminalized
possession. According to the oligarch's daily El Universal, which leads its
report in a panic over the reform's simultaneous legalization of abortion
and euthanasia, here's what the new law does for drug users:

"As personal dose for consumption, the (allowable) quantity of the drug
substance is extended to that which is necessary for average individual
consumption for no more than five days; and as a provisional dose, the
quantity of the substance that is employed for average individual
consumption (according to forensics experts) for no more than ten days."

In sum, the drug addict or user no longer faces prison or penalty in
Venezuela if he possesses small amounts of his drug of choice (specifically
mentioned by the law are marijuana, hashish, cocaine and its derivatives,
opium and its derivatives, and synthetic drugs).

This is truly revolutionary. How and why did it happen? This giant step for
drug policy reform and human freedom in this hemisphere happened because
Venezuelan democracy was defended and US-backed coups were defeated. This
historic development is a discrediting knockout blow to all the hysterical
accusers who claimed that the government of Hugo Chávez would somehow become
"authoritarian" simply because he and the Venezuelan majority don't agree
that "the market" should govern their land.

The vestiges of McCarthyism or "Fear of a Red Planet" appeared in recent
years even from some quarters that claim they want to liberalize drug laws.
Our own newspaper, Narco News, took heat and sustained hard hits over the
past two years in particular for our strong defense of Venezuelan democracy.
"But that has nothing to do with drug policy," the fearful voices accused.

Today, you can see the whole truth, kind reader. Fear no more. In January
2004, Venezuela decriminalized the drug user and the small doses he
possesses. And if the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela sustains the
inevitable backlash from Washington that will now come for daring to
exercize its democratic will to increase human freedom, you will soon see
other Latin American nations follow suit. Ecuador had already done it
quietly (reported only by Narco News -
http://www.narconews.com/Issue29/article703.html ), but Venezuela's action,
because of the size and influence of the country and its economy, and the
context of its role in the current American drama, now provides cover for
Brazil, Argentina, and the rest of the continent to do the same.

To those of you who wisely understood this connection between defending
democracy in Latin America and reforming the insane war on drugs, and who
raised your voices across the world to prevent the coups d'etat, this is
your victory, too. Congratulations, remain vigilant, apply for your
copublisher account to amplify your voice across the continents, and
onward...

Apply for your co-publisher's account, here:

http://www.narconews.com/copublisher/application.php

From somewhere in a country called América,

Al Giordano
Publisher
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com/

narconews@h...

---------

From: rosebudflower_77@...

Thanks Dana for getting the listing of the Hemp Store in San Marcos Texas on the MMM page for 2004. I forgot to add the email address and web page to the list. Here they are

hemptown_rock@...   and www.geocities.com/thehempstore/index.html
thanks again

Rose Phillips

--------------------

From: kencan@...

Hi, everybody.  It looks like I'm going to be successful putting a new
political party on the ballot in Utah.  It will be called the Personal

Choice Party.  I hope to run for Governor.  Anyway, there are people who
support MMM and will not support the new party.  Also, there are people who
will want to support the new party who do not support MMM.  Therefore, it
is useful for me to hand the baton of leadership to my good friend Ben
Valdez.  Ben is very capable and willing to make 2004 the best rally Salt
Lake City has ever seen.  His email is hempower@...  Please deal with
him as well as you have with me.  I will still be there and hope to give a
campaign speech at the rally. But I will not be seen as the rally organizer.

Simply put, as a candidate for Governor, the drug war is unconstitutional
and I would violate my oath of office if I allowed it to be enforced in
Utah one more day.  Federal drug agents who come to Utah to violate the
rights of Utahns will find themselves facing criminal charges.  It's time
for the Tenth Amendment.  The Constitution is on our side.

Ken
I can be a traitor to Bush or I can be a traitor to the Constitution.  I

cannot be loyal to both.

********************

*****BUSHWHACKED!!*****

************************

Thanks for the memories:

http://www.bushflash.com/thanks.html

TIPS Re-surfaces:

http://rense.com/general47/spies.htm

------

From: cohip@...

Denver Rocky Mountain News
9 officers cited for contempt in pot case
By Ellen Miller, Special To The News
January 8, 2004

In a collision of federal and state drug laws, nine law enforcement
officers, including a federal drug agent, were issued contempt citations
Wednesday and ordered by a judge to appear in court Feb. 2 to explain why
they shouldn't be jailed or fined.

Routt County Court Judge James Garrecht had ordered the officers to return
2 ounces of marijuana seized in an October raid of Don Nord's apartment.

Nord, 57, who suffers from cancer, diabetes and other maladies, has a
certificate from the state's medical marijuana registry allowing him to
use and grow small amounts of marijuana.

His misdemeanor ticket for possession was dismissed after prosecutors said
the citation was lost. The judge ordered authorities to return Nord's
growing equipment, pipes and 2 ounces of marijuana.

The Drug Enforcement Agency, however, refused to comply, saying federal
law supersedes state law and makes no provision for medical marijuana.

Nord's growing equipment, however, was returned. State authorities said
the marijuana was sent to a DEA lab, as per usual procedure in Moffat,
Routt and Grand counties.

Eight of the nine officers involved in the raid work for northwestern
Colorado law enforcement agencies, while the ninth was a DEA agent.

"I'm happy the court wants to enforce its order, and I hope they give my
client his medicine back," said Kris Hammond, Nord's attorney. "It'll be
interesting."

The court scheduled a "show cause" hearing, where the officers will have
to explain to the judge why they should not be held in contempt.

=================================================================

Denver Rocky Mountain News

DEA should give back patient's pot
January 4, 2004

Oh, it's good to be the king. You float high above the law and plunder
your subjects with impunity.

Or so it seems in Routt County, where the local cops bring along a federal
drug agent on their raids in hopes that his presence will immunize them
from the sticky strictures of the Colorado Constitution. It's time someone
told them they answer to state law, not the whims of a federal agent who
happens to be hanging around.

Last October a drug "task force" of nine, count 'em nine, agents, acting
on a tip and armed with a warrant, raided Don Nord's home in Hayden.

A major drug bust it was not. They came away with three marijuana plants,
a couple of ounces of pot, some special lights and other growing
equipment. They didn't arrest him; possession of that amount is a
misdemeanor and they left behind a ticket.

They were not dissuaded in the least when Nord, who has suffered from
cancer and diabetes, showed them a certificate saying he's registered in
the state's medical marijuana program, which was established by a vote of

the people in November 2000.

The ticket commanded him to show up in Routt County court Nov. 4. But the
government somehow lost its copy of the ticket and Judge James Garrecht
dismissed the charges. The district attorney's office could have chosen to
refile, but declined to do so.

Kristopher Hammond, Nord's lawyer, then asked the county to return the
marijuana and the paraphernalia. After all, the medical marijuana
amendment specifically says that goods seized "shall not be harmed,
neglected, injured or destroyed" while in the possession of law
enforcement and must be returned immediately after acquittal, dismissal of
charges - or a decision not to prosecute.

The judge gave law enforcement 21 days to return the marijuana and
equipment. You might call it a writ of habeas cannabis. Some of the
equipment was returned but the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency - one of whose
agents had been in on the raid - said the pot had been shipped to its lab
in San Francisco and would not be returned.

"Federal law supersedes state law and the federal government does not
recognize the medicinal use of marijuana," said DEA spokesman Bill Grant
with that effortless superiority the feds are so good at.

But Hammond complained that in fact there was nothing federal about the
case. The warrant had been issued by a state judge. "The feds can't just
steal the marijuana and therefore make it federal property," he said.

But they try, and they convince local law enforcement officials that even
they don't have to obey Colorado law.

As Hammond puts it, "It's no secret that the federal government claims to
be for states rights - until the states do things they don't like, such as
enacting a medical marijuana statute."

He's asking the judge to cite the DEA with contempt. We hope the judge
does just that. If he doesn't, or if the DEA brushes off the citation as
if it were a gnat, perhaps Hammond should try again in federal court.

Even if it isn't found in contempt, the DEA is clearly guilty of violating

the old mob dictum: "Never steal anything small."

--------

Marijuana user waiting for the smoke to clear

Posted: Tuesday January 13th, 2004, 10:30 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday January 13th, 2004, 10:30 PM

Victor Allen Love is imbedded in his favorite La-Z-Boy recliner, ignoring
the parade of Democratic presidential contenders kissing Iowa babies on the
television set in the corner.
Though the smoke has cleared, the acrid sweetness of marijuana is still
strong in the room. The inch-long stub of Love's breakfast joint is still in
an ashtray nearby, next to his Bible -- cold now and awaiting his inevitable
pang of afternoon arthritis.

Love, bearded and barefoot, wants me to know it's OK. He has a doctor's note
for his pot. Two, actually, from two doctors. And reams of material about
the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, the country's first medical marijuana
law.

The law, enacted as Proposition 215, permits Californians with certain
medical problems, including cancer and HIV, to grow and use marijuana to
knock back pain and nausea, but only on the recommendation of a physician.

To Love, who says he also suffers from gout and asthma, the law is a
godsend. He placed a sign citing the law in the 35-by-10-foot garden out in
back of his double-wide, in the Lake Isabella-area burg of Mountain Mesa. It
stood there like a scarecrow against sheriff's deputies and others who would
question his right to grow.

It didn't do him much good.

Deputies tore out his plants last September and arrested him and his
girlfriend, Deborah Peugh, on charges of cultivation and possession with
intent to sell. She goes to court today for her preliminary hearing; Love's
day in court is Friday.

He's been in Kern County courtrooms before, having been arrested on gun and
marijuana possession charges in 1992 and 1994. And there might easily have
been more on his rap sheet. He claims to have quit his motorcycle gang, Los
Compadres, after the Hells Angels killed a man at a Rolling Stones concert

at Altamont Speedway in 1969. And he was a heavy heroin user but quit, he
says, thanks to an LSD-induced moment of clarity.

Now he's an ordained minister in the nondenominational Church of the Here
and Now, and though he lacks the traditional vestments of clergy, he's got
the emphatic baritone of a man of the cloth. The Rev. Love's cloth just

happens to be tie-dyed.

On this particular day he's preaching the gospel of ganja. Medicinal
cannabis works, Love says, booming authoritatively over the drone of the TV.

If he had enough, he says, he'd share with anybody who asked -- provided
they had a legitimate medical need, backed up by a doctor's letter. If he

thought he could do it and still stay out of jail, he'd gladly be the chief
proprietor of a nonprofit Lake Isabella Cannabis Club.

Why? Because cannabis is infinitely better than this, Love explains,
reaching across a cluttered lamp table to pick up a jam jar-sized bottle of
white, oval pills -- hydrocodone, a powerful and addictive prescription
painkiller. Legitimately obtained, he notes.

Of course, Love contends, so was the marijuana.

The Sheriff's Department, which uprooted and hauled away Love's crop last
Sept. 10, apparently disagrees. Deputies, who found the plants -- some as
big as five feet tall -- growing across the back fence of Love's property,
say they saw too much traffic outside the place for Love's operation to be
anything other than a for-profit enterprise.

When they burst in, armed with a search warrant, they found a number of
telltale items, most notably about $800 in cash and an Ohaus-brand scale.
But, Love says pointedly, no pay-and-owe logs.

Deputies yanked out the 16 plants -- Love says there were only 13 -- along
with his carrots, tomatoes, beets, spinach, corn, snap peas and butternut
squash. He's especially mad about the butternut squash.

And now his stash is down to this: three fat green-brown buds, one of the
Thai variety, the other two from a cannabis family he fondly calls "Fruity
Pebbles." The samples survived the sheriff's raid only because he'd
previously buried them in a Mason jar.

If the Rev. Love had his druthers, he wouldn't be smoking pot at all; he'd
be grinding it into a fine powder and sauteing it every morning with butter,
garlic and onion for his breakfast burrito. (Chicken and refried beans
complete the recipe.) Eating it, Love says, numbs the pain and minimizes the
drug's inebriating effect, and he can customize his dose to meet that day's
pain level -- hence the scale.

Explaining all that will be part of his strategy this week. He's hoping for
the same outcome that Lori Lane Feliciano got in 2002, when her Kern County
case involving the alleged cultivation of six marijuana plants was thrown
out; she had also cited the Compassionate Use Act.

Sheriff's Cmdr. Hal Chealander, whose Lake Isabella-based deputies carried
out the search on Love's home, says the Compassionate Use Act doesn't create
a legal force field around people who cultivate marijuana -- for medicinal
purposes or otherwise. It merely provides a potential defense in court.
Deciding whether it applies to the case at hand will be up to the jury. Love
says he's anxious to get all this settled. After all, it's already January.

Planting time is right around the corner.

****!!!IBOGAINE TREATMENT NOW $1500 IN HOLLAND--CALL SARA, 0113134-624-1770 !!!****

Highly ironic, isn't it, that Staley was in the faction of ACT UP that voted 23 to 21 to pull the plug on ibo development in 1994.

Dana/cnw

The Beast in the Bathhouse
By ANDREW JACOBS

Published: January 12, 2004

ob looked haggard but was feeling fabulous. Chewing gum at a manic clip, circling the labyrinthine halls of the West Side Club on a recent Sunday afternoon, he had been awake since Friday, thanks to a glassine pouch of crystalline powder he had tucked beneath the mattress of a room he rented in this Chelsea bathhouse.

The powder, known as methamphetamine, or crystal meth, had helped Bob conquer a half-dozen sex partners during a 35-hour binge. Like many of the men cruising the two-level club lined with closet-size cubicles, Bob, a 37-year-old advertising copywriter, was "tweaking," high on a wildly addictive stimulant that has been sweeping through Manhattan's gay ghettos.

"The stuff is a wonder," he said, taking a pause from his prowling, his scrawny frame wrapped in a white towel. Asked about condoms and the niceties of safe sex, Bob shrugged. "Whatever," he said, turning away.

At the club, there were plenty of condoms for the taking, courtesy of the management, but in conversations with a dozen patrons who acknowledged using crystal, only two men said they were following the rules of engagement in the age of AIDS. "Some guys just throw you out of the room if you pull one out," said one of the men, James, who, like everyone else, would not give his full name. "To them, rubbers are a killjoy."

Health officials say a sharp increase in the number of syphilis cases in the city indicates an increase in unsafe sex, which they fear may lead to a resurgence in H.I.V. transmission.

For now, researchers say, crystal meth use in the city is largely confined to gay white men in Manhattan, although they fear its eventual spread to the wider gay population and beyond.

There are no numbers, however, to show what health care workers say is the growing role that crystal meth is playing in transmitting H.I.V. Although the evidence is anecdotal, health officials say that crystal, which erases inhibitions and spurs sex marathons with multiple partners, is helping to spread the virus.

According to the city's largest private clinic for lesbians and gay men, Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, two-thirds of those testing positive for H.I.V. since June acknowledged that crystal meth was a factor in their infection.

Dr. Howard Grossman, one of the city's best-known AIDS specialists, said more than half the men who test positive in his private practice blamed methamphetamine. "This drug is destroying our community," he said. "It just seems to be getting worse and worse, and no one is doing anything about it."

Although the city Department of Health does not track crystal meth use among the newly infected, the city's poison control center received four dozen reports of crystal meth overdoses in 2002 and 2003. In the previous two years, there were none, said the city's health commissioner, Thomas R. Frieden. In another survey, the agency found that H.I.V.-positive men were twice as likely as uninfected men to use methamphetamine; those who use the drug were also less likely than other men to wear condoms during anal intercourse. "We're seeing a general increase in risky sexual behavior, and we're concerned," Dr. Frieden said.

Sometimes called crank, ice or tina, crystal meth is not new. For years, it has been cutting a destructive path through working-class communities in the Midwest and among gay men in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The drug found a toehold in New York dance clubs in the late 1990's and quickly spread among gay men who troll the Web for sex. Most start off snorting crystal, progress to smoking and later inject the drug when tolerance mounts. Even a small amount, about a quarter gram for $60, can propel a user through a weekend devoid of sleep, food and self-preservation.

During his eight-year addiction, Devin, a 38-year-old magazine writer, ended up in the emergency room six times from the effects of dehydration or a perilously rapid heartbeat. He lost five jobs, and four teeth began to rot from neglect and speed-induced jaw grinding. "Food, sleep and H.I.V. medication go out the window," he said. "Crystal takes over your life entirely. You don't really care about anything except the next high."

One figure might reveal how entrenched crystal meth has become in New York: Nearly two dozen 12-step meetings are held each week around the city for those trying to shake the drug. In 2002, there were four Crystal Meth Anonymous meetings each week. In 1999, there were none.

"Just a few years ago, we were worrying about the arrival of crystal meth," said Perry N. Halkitis, a psychologist at New York University. "Well, it's finally here."

He and others say that if past drug trends are any indication, crystal will migrate beyond the province of gay men, just as it has in the heartland, where the drug has become symptomatic of rural decline. "It's just a matter of time," Dr. Halkitis said.

It didn't take long for Jim, a 34-year-old freelance editor, to become acquainted with crystal and AIDS. He believes he was infected during his first encounter with the drug in 1999, at the home of someone he met over the Internet. "The guy offered me some. I didn't really know much about crystal and I did it. I got so high, I was essentially having nonconsensual sex."

A veteran AIDS activist, Jim knows he should have known better. "Once I was diagnosed, I was so embarrassed and ashamed, it fueled my addiction," he said. "I became the beast that eats its own tail."

For four years, Jim handed his life over to meth. What began as a weekend habit quickly became a daily dependence. Old friends were pushed away, jobs went by the wayside, and his credit card debt reached $40,000. He contracted syphilis twice. And coming down was excruciating. "When you're crashing, all you want to do is get high again," he said. "It's single-minded and ugly."

As addiction deepens, crystal meth wreaks havoc on the brain. In advanced cases of addiction, users can become psychotic with effects that mimic schizophrenia, says Dr. Antonio Urbina, a researcher at St. Vincent Catholic Medical Center who studies the drug's impact on neurological function. He says the drug can also compromise immune function and interfere with AIDS medications. "If you're H.I.V. positive, crystal is a disaster," Dr. Urbina said.

Despite what experts describe as an emerging crisis, neither public health officials nor private gay organizations in New York have done much to quell crystal meth's spread. San Francisco, by contrast, will spend $425,000 for education and treatment.

Dismayed by the lack of public attention to the problem, one recovering addict has decided to demonize the drug on his own. Peter Staley, a driving force behind the AIDS activist group Act Up, has spent $6,000 of his own money to place provocative ads on phone booths along Eighth Avenue in Chelsea. He said it took two months to persuade Verizon to accept the posters, which shout "Huge Sale, Buy Crystal, Get HIV Free!"

The ads, which began appearing last Wednesday, will remain up until early February. "My goal is to get the drug the reputation it deserves," said Mr. Staley, who has been sober for 13 months. "My fear is that young gay men think it's the latest party drug. I want crystal to get the stigma that heroin has. It is not glamorous, it is not alluring."

Like many other crystal neophytes, Mr. Staley began using the drug to keep him going at all-night dance clubs. "I've tried every drug in the book and never got addicted, but this one grabbed me by the throat the first time I did it," said Mr. Staley, 43, who has been H.I.V. positive since 1985. "I'm a control freak. I mean, I couldn't get addicted to cigarettes, but I couldn't give crystal up."

Drug experts say there is no methadone, no silver bullet, to treat methamphetamine addicts. For this reason, substance abuse counselors are preaching to "just say no" to crystal. It is a message that many gay men do not want to hear.

"When it comes to crystal, there is no moderation," said Dawn Harbatkin, the medical director at Callen-Lorde, which is conducting a pilot study on ways to treat crystal meth addiction. "I don't have any great treatment options right now. This drug really terrifies me, and I think what we're seeing is the tip of the iceberg."

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To join the Mindvox ibogaine list just send an email to ibogaine-subscribe@... if you please.

Nothing more to it. You don't have to write anything in the subject or text area.

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From: HSLotsof@...

MAPS has archived the original Psychedelic Reviews (1974- 1971)
http://www.maps.org/psychedelicreview/

Howard

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Re:high dose mthadone

From: Schmoolyboy@...

I guess you are at Shindermans clinic in Chicago. I have used Ibo to detox a female with brittle diabetes . She was on 475 mgs meth for 5 years and did well. Of course , the protocol was tweaked to meet her specific needs and she was very motivated and did a lot of work for her recovery post Ibo. She is clean one year later.

 

Yes it can be done , but please find caring people who have experience with high dose chronic opioid patients. G-D bless you and good luck. I'm sure Howard can put you in the right direction to find good people to accomplish this goal with you. Not easy but yes... doable. Keep the faith . I was on 180 meth for 10 years and detoxed to zero over 8 months and it was hard but 9 years later I am clean and feel well . It initially took me another 4 months to get through it and it was hard . But if you really want it and have a good support network .. It can be done. Jolly ho and further

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Re: [ibogaine] Laurent, rootbark & homemade extract

From: swbooker@...

> > On 8/01/04 9:54, "Sara Glatt" wrote:

> > > Nick, In other words I would say ,A good Ceremony is like a good wine in
> > > a good company and a "hotel room" setting is like a cheap one all alone,
> > > you may get drunk from both though.
> > >

> > > S.

I have to throw in my two cents to this discussion since it's been nagging at me for a bit.  I just can't fathom why humans are so incredibly hung up on "it's my way or it's the wrong way."  I think getting drunk on cheap wine all alone in a motel room could sound very appealing (I enjoy solitude alot!)
 
If a person ever takes a glance at nature, one of it's most obvious incredible "blow me away" characteristics is that it's incredibly diverse.  Who would say that a bat is less beautiful or necessary than a dog or even an ant. It seems like whatever designed all of this thought everything was cool... Just follow your own path and quit worrying about what the other is doing.  All this insistence on us "knowing what's best"  for everyone else just fuels wars and killing and hatred. Boy I wish we could give it a rest.
 

Sandy Watson

IF YOU WANT YR CONTACT ON THE NEW IBOGAINE POSTER, SET UP AN IBOGAINE DROP-IN CENTER TODAY!

********************************************************************

To get on the poster for 2004--"Mayday is Jay Day"--check yr contact info on the old list below, and add yr city to this New List

----the MMM city lists are snipped off. See links below.-----

-----end of forwarded email-----

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Please confirm cities yearly in order to get on the posters
and web pages. Send in updated contact info (especially
email addresses and web page URL address links) for your
city. To be safe please use both methods below, because
messages disappear for many reasons. Submit and resubmit
info, as often as necessary, after checking the 2004 city
lists online. Send email with "MMM" in the title to Dana
Beal at
dana@... - Also use contact forms online at
http://www.millionmarijuanamarch.org/contact.php

MMM 2003 city list.
http://corporatism.tripod.com/mmm2003.htm and
http://members.fortunecity.com/multi19/mmm2003.htm

MMM 2002 city list.
http://corporatism.tripod.com/mmm2002.htm and
http://members.fortunecity.com/multi19/mmm2002.htm

MMM 2004 city list.
http://corporatism.tripod.com/mmm2004.htm and
http://members.fortunecity.com/multi19/mmm2004.htm

A similar MMM 2004 city list (with more info and links):
http://www.millionmarijuanamarch.org/navigator.php

MMM Cannabis Action. Yahoo Group email list, and public
archive.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cannabisaction

*MMM links. Million Marijuana March. Global Cannabis Action.
Global March for Cannabis Liberation. Rallies, marches,
concerts, raves, etc.. 1st Saturday in May, or that weekend,
or some day close to it. Worldwide since 1999. May 1, 2004.
May 3 2003. May 4 2002. May 5, 2001. May 6, 2000. May 1,
1999. 236 cities rallied in 2003. Cannabis Liberation Day.
Many links. Alphabetical city contact lists, event
navigators, mailing lists and archives, flyers, posters,
banners, rally report compilations, search shortcuts, media
coverage, MMM history, etc..
http://www.geocities.com/tents444/mmmlinks.htm and
http://corporatism.tripod.com/mmmlinks.htm and
http://members.fortunecity.com/multi19/mmmlinks.htm

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