 |
News
Archive 2003
CJPF
President Eric E. Sterling appeared
on Maryland Public Television (MPT), Channel 22, on
Friday, Nov. 14 at 7:30 p.m. on the public affairs program
"State Circle," hosted by Jeff Salkin, to debate the
"State of the War on Drugs" with Delegate
Anthony O'Donnell, the Minority Whip of the
Maryland House of Delegates.
***
Eric
E. Sterling spoke at Georgetown University
on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2003 on "Racism and the War on Drugs,"
an event of Prison Awareness Week at Georgetown.
***
CJPF
President Eric E. Sterling addressed the
Maryland Public Defenders Office on November 12, 2003
in Montgomery County, MD on the application of the medical
marijuana law that took effect on October 1, 2003.
***
On Friday, Nov. 7, 2003, Eric
E. Sterling chaired a continuing legal education
panel discussing litigation to address racial profiling
by police officers in highway stops and drug prosecutions
a the conference of the Drug Policy Alliance in East Rutherford,
NJ. The distinguished speakers were Ron
Hampton, Executive Director, National Black
Police Association (a police officer for 24 years); William
Buckman, Esq., who successfully sued the New
Jersey State Police for illegal racial profiling on the
New Jersey Turnpike; Curtis
V. Rodriguez, Esq., who successfully sued the
California Highway Patrol for illegal racial profiling
on California's highways; Lisa
Daugaard, Esq., of the Defender Association
of Seattle-King County, WA, who is challenging the prosecution
of African-American defendants for drug offenses in Seattle,
alleging that the evidence of drug use, drug distribution
and drug prosecutions demonstrates an irrefutable case
that African-Americans are disproportionately targeted
for drug arrest and prosecution; Katherine
Beckett, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept.
of Sociology and Law, University of Washington, who has
compiled and analyzed the data underlying the Seattle,
WA challenge; and Reginald
T. Shuford, Esq., Chief Litigator for racial
profiling of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation,
who outlined the important elements of a successful settlement
of racial profiling litigation.
***
On November 7 and 8, Tyler
H. Smith, CJPF Operations and Research Manager,
and board member of Students
for Sensible Drug Policy, worked with other SSDP board
members and staff to develop an SSDP message and response
team to go to Stratford H.S. in Goose Creek, SC. At 6:40
a.m., Nov. 5, 2003, 14 police officers called by the school's
principal, conducted a drug
raid, patrolling the halls with drug sniffing dogs,
and pointing their guns at the high school students forced
to lie down on the hallway floor. No drugs were found
in this overaggressive
raid.
***
On Nov. 4, 2003, Eric
E. Sterling hosted Dr.
Oscar Ortiz Sanchez, the head of the evaluation
department at the detention centers for men and women
in Quito, Ecuador. Dr. Ortiz is visiting the U.S. as a
guest of the U.S. State Department, learning about American
drug prevention, treatment and enforcement programs, and
mental health evaluation and treatment. They discussed
the war on drugs.
***
On Wednesday, October 29, CJPF
President Eric E. Sterling debated Maryland
House of Delegates minority whip Anthony
O'Donnell at McDaniel College in Westminster,
MD. The two hour debate entitled: "The War on Drugs: Our
domestic Vietnam?" was well attended, and was covered
by the Carroll
County Times.
***
Eric
E. Sterling testified before the Maryland Senate
Special Committee on substance abuse on Tuesday, October
28. CJPF's president urged the committee to follow the
recommendations of a recent Baltimore
grand jury report (specifically focus on section IV.
Revisit the Idea of Regulated Distribution) and commission
a university study on the regulated distribution of currently
illicit drugs. To see a copy of his statement, click
here.
***
Failed
anti-drug education
The White House's Anti-Drug Media campaign has been distorted
to meet political objectives. For example, to prop up
support for the failed anti-drug effort, the ad campaign
says that teenage pot smokers are financing terrorists.
This absurd
claim is counter productive. However, The Daily Show
with Jon Stewart has used it for some brilliant
satire. (Click on Ad Nauseum: Illegal Drugs with Ed
Helms)
***
CJPF
President Eric Sterling comments on the public's
concerns about the death penalty in this
September 4, 2003 Christian Science Monitor article
by Amanda Paulson and Abraham McLaughlin.
***
Supreme
Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's landmark speech
to the American Bar Association on August 9, 2003 calls
for a reinvigoration of the clemency process and an end
to mandatory mininum sentences. This is a profoundly important
call to action by one of the nation's leading jurists.
Read
the speech here.
***
CJPF
President Eric E. Sterling was interviewed
on KCAA-1050 AM radio in Los Angeles on July 11, 2003
by veteran radio host, Barry Lynn, in a conversation about
the war on drugs.
***
On July 3, 2003, on KPFT-90.1 FM in Houston, CJPF
President Eric E. Sterling was interviwed by
Dean Becker, the hard-working and energetic host of the
Cultural
Baggage radio series. This interview was an broad
overview of the nation's drug problem and what can be
done about it.
***
On June 26, the Center
for Public Integrity issued an important
report on the problem of prosecutorial misconduct.
A large team of investigators undertook a three-year study
examining over 10,000 cases of alleged prosecutorial misconduct
committed since 1970. They found that in many district
attorney's offices, certain elected or appointed prosecutors
had long records of misconduct as identified in court
records. Many of these cases never reached a jury.
The prosecutorial decision is an important and difficult
one. But exercise of prosecutorial discretion is often
tainted by ambition, by excessive zeal, and by failing
to keep a professional distance from the police.
***
On June 16, 2003, CJPF
President Eric E. Sterling was a guest on
the most important local talk radio show in Baltimore,
the Mark Steiner Show on WYPR-88.1 FM, the NPR affiliate.
The subject was the crisis of crime in Baltimore. Sterling
stressed the failure of the war on drugs as a factor
in Baltimore's continuing high rate of heroin addiction
and violent crime.
***
In her
June 8, 2003 column , syndicated columnist Debra
Saunders wondered what would happen if drugs
were legalized. She cites
CJPF President Eric E. Sterling as the authority
on the size of America's anti-drug effort, $50 billion
annually.
***
On June
2, 2003, in the report of the
Christian Science Monitor on the capture of bombing
suspect Eric Rudolph in North Carolina,
CJPF President Eric E. Sterling was interviewed.
***
On May
22, 2003, Maryland
Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. signed H.B.
702 to permit medical patients who use to marijuana
to present medical evidence in their defense when prosecuted
for marijuana possession in Maryland criminal courts.
If the judge finds that there was a valid medical reason
for the marijuana use, he or she may then sentence the
patient to a maximum $100.00 fine in lieu of the usual
maximum of up to one year imprisonment and a fine of $1000.00.
This extremely modest reform of the Maryland law,
which continues to treat medical patients who use marijuana
as offenders, was vociferously opposed by the White
House, and attacked as an encouragement to teenagers
to smoke marijuana.
Former Delegate
Donald Murphy (R-Baltimore County) was the
greatest advocate for this bill and was greatly assisted
by the Marijuana Policy
Project which doggedly fought to get this bill through
the legislature and signed by the Governor. MPP
Executive Director Rob Kampia stood with
the Governor and other supporters at the bill signing.
CJPF
President Eric E. Sterling
testified on behalf of the Marijuana
Policy Project before the Maryland
Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee (on February
26, 2003) and the Maryland
House of Delegates Judiciary committee (on March
4, 2003), in support of the more sweeping reform which
did not pass, S.B.
502, identical to an earlier version of H.B. 702.
Click here
to read Mr. Sterling's testimony.
***
The cover
story of the May-June 2003 issue of Sojourners
Magazine was "The
War at Home" by Sanho Tree, Director of the Drug
Policy Project of the Institute for Policy Studies .
Tree asks, "Have we reached the point where the drug
war causes more harm than the drugs themselves?"
The magazine includes an accompanying article by CJPF
President Eric E. Sterling on what churches have said about drug and alcohol
policy over the years, "Beyond 'Just Say No'".
***
National
Public Radio News broadcast an interview with CJPF
President Eric E. Sterling
on Morning Edition on May 21, 2003, about the use of
informants in drug trials and the role of mandatory
minimum sentences in encouraging perjury. The interview
was by Alan Tomlinson, in Miami, who was covering the
Operation Millennium prosecution of Fabio Ochoa. It
can be heard at
Miami Cocaine Trial on the Morning
Edition schedule.
***
In April, 2003, a panel, chaired by Kurt L. Schmoke,
Dean, Howard University Law School, convened by the
American
Bar Association, Standing Committee on Substance Abuse,
and Join
Together, reported on rampant discrimination against
people with addictions. This discrimination restricts
their access to education, housing, employment, financial
assistance, and health care, which often discourages
people from seeking treatment.
Read the excellent recommendations of the panel, ENDING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST PEOPLE WITH ALCOHOL AND DRUG
PROBLEMS.
Eric Sterling works on the Standing Committee on Substance
Abuse as liaison from the ABA Section on Individual
Rights and Responsibilities.
***
On April 4, 2003, CJPF
President Eric E. Sterling spoke at a symposium of the
Fellows of the Congressional
Hispanic Caucus Institute about "The Pros and Cons
of Legalizing Illicit Drugs."
CJPF
President Eric E. Sterling was quoted in the San
Diego Union Tribune article, "Battle
lines blurred in war over marijuana," on Sunday,
February 9, 2003.
***
CJPF
President Eric E. Sterling was
quoted on February 5, 2003 in a New York Times
article White
House Report Stings Drug Agency on Abilities. The
story refers to the Bush administration's recent criticism
of the DEA's poor performance, criticisms Mr. Sterling
has been making for years. (Click
here for testimony Mr. Sterling gave before the
House Subcommittee on Crime in 1999). Click here
for the Office of Budget and Management Report.
|
|
