Due to staff travel time and illness, we are not publishing an issue of The Week Online with DRCNet this week.  I'm writing this memo instead, to update you on some important issues.

1. COCAINE SENTENCING BILL

Thanks to the many of you who responded to our action alert and wrote Congress in opposition to the Abraham Amendment to the bankruptcy bill that would raise penalties for powder cocaine offenses by lowering the quantities of powder cocaine offenses that trigger the five and ten year mandatory minimum sentences.

We lost the vote, but not by much, and there's a real chance that the bill can still be stopped before it becomes law.  The amendment passed the Senate 50-48, and six of the Senators who voted "nay" were Republicans, including Slade Gorton of Washington, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Mike Crapo and Larry Craig of Idaho, Susan Collins of Maine and Jim Jeffords of Vermont.  Sentencing reform advocates were also surprised by some of the Democrats voting no, such as Dianne Feinstein of California, Joe Biden of Delaware and Max Baucus of Montana.

Because the House and Senate versions of the bankruptcy bill are not identical, they will go to a conference committee next year.  (One of the differences is that the House version contained nothing having to do with cocaine.)  The committee will draft a single version and send it back to the House and Senate for another vote.  We will be alerting you when that time approaches and asking you to respond again.

If you haven't yet contacted Congress regarding this amendment, please visit http://www.drcnet.org/justice/ to send a free e-mail, and follow up with phone calls to your Representative and your Senators if you can.  (Our system will provide you with the phone number.)  We've updated our sample letter to reflect the bill's new situation.  Visiting http://www.drcnet.org/justice/ and sending a letter from it will also provide us with a record of what district you are from, and we can then let you know next year if you are represented by one of the conference committee members (in which case your phone call or letter will make an especially great impact).

A complete tally of the Abraham amendment vote is online at http://www.senate.gov/legislative/vote1061/vote_00360.html
on the Senate web site.  (The title on that pages reads "Hatch amendment," but we've been assured that it is the right page.)  Find out if your Senators voted yea or nay, and if they voted yea, call and express your displeasure!  Visit the Families Against Mandatory Minimums web site at http://www.famm.org for further information about mandatory minimums and the Abraham legislation.

2. LEONILDA ARRESTED ON RETURN TO BOLIVIA

Last week, an impressive collection of Latin American and other leaders signed an open letter to the drug czars of North and South America, declaring the war on drugs to be a failure and calling for a new direction in drug policy (see http://www.drcnet.org/wol/115.html#latinleaders).  The following day, advocates protested across the street from the drug czars' Washington, DC summit, opposing the exportation of U.S. drug policy to Latin America (see http://www.drcnet.org/wol/115.html#dcprotest).  Thanks to the many of you came out and protested on a chilly evening, especially those of you who traveled distances to get there.  The protest was widely aired in the Latin media, including
Univision and CNN Spanish.

One of the speakers at both the press conference and protest was Leonilda Vurita Vargas, representative of the coca growers union in the Cochabamba region of Bolivia.  Leonilda described how the government's eradication forces have destroyed hectares of pineapple -- the government's recommended substitute crop -- and how 13 of their people have been killed since April, including a young boy from inhaling fumes; and she explained that they have no markets for the pineapple and other crops, therefore still have no other choice than to grow coca or starve.  Leonilda was interviewed extensively by Latin American media after the press conference.

On arriving at the Cochabamba airport on her return to Bolivia, Leonilda was arrrested under irregular police procedures, described in the following message from Kathryn Ledebur and Raul Olivera of the Cochabamba-based Andean Information Network (AIN):

Leonilda Zurita Vargas was released from the Sacaba police station this morning, because the district attorney did not take her statement yesterday and is out of town today.  She will return tomorrow to give her statement.  Her release was a result of the combined efforts of the Permanent Human Rights Assemblies of Sacaba and Cochabamba, the Andean Information Network, and the Human Rights Ombudsman's office.

According to Hugo Montero, lawyer for the Cochabamba Permanent Human Rights Assembly who examined the documents with us at the police station, the document presented as an arrest warrant did not state the crime she was accused of committing.  The document only gave the police the right to take her to make a statement, not lock her up over night.
The district attorney's application for the arrest warrant does not state the reason for the arrest, as a result, the judge should have refused to sign the illegal warrant.  In short, her detention was completely illegal.

As a result, she spent 24 hours illegally detained in a tiny, dirt floored cell.

She and seven other dirigentes are being charged with instigating the members of the Tropico Federation to break down doors and steal the locks from a building used as a health post on March 18,1999.  The Federation and another group were involved in a dispute over ownership of the building.

The documentation is extremely disorganized and there are several legal irregularities.  The accusing party has to be present for the statements and has never appeared.  The accusations are against the Tropico Federation.  Oddly, Florencio Coca, leader of a different federation (Chapare Yungas) was also charged.

We will post a letter-writing alert on Leonilda's behalf in a subsequent issue of The Week Online, if AIN and other human rights monitoring organizations feel it is necessary.  A photograph of Leonilda in jail can be viewed online at http://www.drcnet.org/wol/leonilda.jpg.

Leonilda's illegal detention illustrates the destructive impact of the drug war on human rights and due process.  It also shows the injustice that current policies bring upon the poor, and the risks that some advocates must take on their behalf.  Happily, the matter of increased counternarcotics funding for the Andean nations has been put aside until Congress returns to session next year.  We will be sending out a letter-writing alert opposing the funding and militarization package; we hope that you will think of Leonilda's sacrifices and take the time to write or call Congress on behalf of her and her people.

3. MCWILLIAMS AND MCCORMICK CAN'T BRING UP MEDICAL MARIJUANA AT THEIR TRIALS

The judge presiding in the trials of Peter McWilliams and Todd McCormick has ruled that they and their attorneys may not mention medical marijuana or their medical conditions.  Hence, the juries will deliberate and decide McWilliams and McCormick's fate without having all of the facts of the case.  Visit http://www.petertrial.com to read the latest news about these cases, including press coverage in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times.  You can submit letters to the editor to those papers at [email protected] and [email protected].

We will continue to post information about these cases, but you can get the info soonest and most completely from Peter
McWilliams' e-mail list; visit http://www.mcwilliams.com to subscribe to it.

THE WEEK ONLINE WILL RETURN NEXT WEEK, SO STAY TUNED!

David Borden, Executive Director, [email protected]