rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (06/13/91)
/** christic.news: 93.0 **/ ** Topic: DRUG TELECONFERENCE IN NOVEMBER ** ** Written 5:44 pm Jun 7, 1991 by christic in cdp:christic.news ** ----------------------------------------------------------------- DRUG TELECONFERENCE WILL PROPOSE ALTERNATIVES TO `WAR ON DRUGS' Convergence Magazine, Christic Institute, Summer 1991 The Bush Administration's failed ``war on drugs'' will be challenged in a national three-day teleconference in November. The event, organized by more than 20 religious denominations and public-interest groups, is designed to give activists the information they need to draft an alternative drug policy for national debate. The conference--Causes and Cures: National Teleconference on the Narcotics Epidemic--is scheduled to meet Nov. 7 to 9 at the Riverside Church in New York City and is open to the public. Satellite and telephone links will connect the main event to regional conferences in 50 states. The Christic Institute and the Riverside Church are providing organizing support. More a dozen religious denominations are supporting the campaign. ``One of the unusual features of this project,'' says Christic Institute Organizing Director Mary Cassell, ``is that in addition to the Jewish community, churches of virtually every Christian tradition are active, including Roman Catholics, mainline protestants, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox, evangelicals and pentecostals.'' Historic black churches are also involved. The churches and Jewish organizations hope to organize 1,000 congregations to sponsor regional conferences in 100 cities. One conference supporter, Rabbi Allen Bennett of San Francisco, says the event may ``reach far more people in more effective ways than almost anything else has done.'' ``While I know the symposium will not bring an end to the epidemic by itself, I also know that the efforts up to now to combat the problem have been not only too little, too late, but also more punitive than positive,'' added Bennett, who is a regional executive director of the American Jewish Congress. The national and regional conferences are designed to explore issues that have been disregarded by the Administration's ``war on drugs,'' including the United States Government's complicity in international narcotics trafficking, which conference organizers say was a major catalyst for the growth of narcotics cartels during the past 40 years. Local committees are already at work in over 90 communities nationwide. Sites for the local conferences will include colleges, high schools, churches, hotels and hospitals. They will feature a direct satellite feed from the anchor meeting in New York. Cable TV customers will be able to watch highlights of the conference at home over ``VISN,'' the Vision Interfaith Satellite Network. Several task forces of drug experts are already at work on proposals for alternative policies. Early reports on the task force meetings suggest that the policies will stress prevention, treatment, and stricter laws against Government connivance with drug smugglers. ``Organized by and for national religious institutions, drug- treatment professionals and activists in the social justice and labor movements, the teleconference will draw on the practical experience of experts who deal with the epidemic every day in their communities,'' says conference organizer William Teska, an Episcopal priest and the Christic Institute's religious liaison director. ``The project will also facilitate ongoing coalition work among these constituencies at the grassroots.'' As the largest project of its kind, the teleconference and the subsequent organizing campaign have the potential to reach tens of thousands of citizens and to mobilize them on behalf of an entirely new approach to the problem, Teska says. ``In order to formulate an effective policy, the drug problem must be viewed from a number of perspectives,'' says Cassell. ``For example, it is certainly an issue of social justice, as well as an issue of public health and of international politics. It is also most definitely an issue of peace, since international drug trafficking contributes significantly to the financing of covert operations and so-called `low-intensity' wars around the world.'' The conference organizers say a genuinely comprehensive national policy must address several key issues: 1. The root causes of drug abuse and dealing in the United States. 2. The dynamics of international trafficking, including the relationship between covert operations and the flow of narcotics into this country. 3. The political economy of source countries in Latin America and Asia. 4. The role of multinational institutions--banks and corpo- rations--and the economic forces that drive the crisis. 5. Interdiction and criminal justice. 6. The Administration's response: the ``war on drugs.'' 7. The community response: model programs of prevention and treatment. Policy task forces--composed of health and law-enforcement professionals, academics, recovering addicts and religious leaders--have already begun work in these areas. One member of the task force on international traffficking is Dennis Dayle, a veteran of international drug law-enforcement. At a recent meeting of his task force he told the group that ``in my 30 years experience in the D.E.A. and its precursor organizations, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the C.I.A.'' ``This connection between United States covert operations and drug trafficking is analogous to the `dirty family secret' in a chemically dependent family system: everyone knows it, but there is a tacit pact not to talk about it,'' Teska says. ``Until this pattern of denial is broken, the family cannot begin the process of recovery. Likewise, as long as covert operations are permitted to cooperate with drug traffickers, we will always have a domestic drug problem in the United States.'' Since the beginning of the Reagan-Bush Administration's war on Nicaragua in 1981, the domestic cocaine supply has increased by 1,000 percent, Teska says. During their covert support of the Afghan mujaheddin, the United States market share of Afghan heroin grew from a negligible fraction to 70 percent. At the same time, heroin consumption in the United States has increased steeply. ``Nevertheless, the Congress and the mainstream media have been reluctant to face the issue: the C.I.A.'s habit of cooperating with drug smugglers in covert operations is a major cause of our domestic epidemics,'' says Teska. In their ``Call to Action'' announcing the event, the religious leaders summarize the policy they will elaborate in November: ``Prevention and treatment, rather than punishment, are the proper focus of an effective approach to the problem. One aspect of prevention is individual inoculation in the form of effective programs of education. Another aspect of prevention is eradica-tion of the domestic conditions that lead to addiction, such as poverty and unemployment. A third aspect is interdicting drug traffic, including a reordering of national foreign policy priorities, which have in the past permitted U.S. agencies to adopt a policy of leniency and even complicity with traffickers, when it suits some other purpose (as in the cases of Manuel Noriega's Panama, the Bahamas, and the Nicaraguan contras).'' The teleconference sponsors hope to begin a movement to rearrange national priorities, shifting the focus of drug policy from foreign intervention and domestic punishment to prevention and treatment at home and an uncompromising official policy of ``zero tolerance'' for official cooperation with drug-smugglers abroad. Churches and religious organizations involved in the conference include the African Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, American Baptist Churches, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Church of God in Christ, Church Women United, Congress of National Black Churches, Episcopal Church, Orthodox Church in America, Progressive National Baptist Convention, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Roman Catholic Church, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church. ** End of text from cdp:christic.news ** /** christic.news: 94.0 **/ ** Topic: ACTION: DRUG TELECONFERENCE ** ** Written 5:49 pm Jun 7, 1991 by christic in cdp:christic.news ** ------------------------------------------------------------------- ACTION: JOIN OUR `CAUSES AND CURES' DRUG TELECONFERENCE Convergence Magazine, Christic Institute, Summer 1991 1. Help organize a teleconference in your community. Call or write us for your local contact. 2. Attend the Riverside conference in New York. Contact us for registration information. Our phone numbers: (202) 797-8106 in Washington, (415) 788-0475 in San Francisco and (213) 287-1556 in Los Angeles. 3. Involve your church, synagogue or organization. Publicize the conference and recruit 10 others to attend the teleconference nearest you. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Andrew Lang 151251507 CHRISTIC telex Christic Institute christic PeaceNet Washington, D.C. tcn tcn449 202-797-8106 voice uunet!pyramid!cdp!christic UUCP 202-529-0140 BBS cdp!christic%labrea@stanford Bitnet 202-462-5138 fax cdp!christic@labrea.stanford.edu Internet ** End of text from cdp:christic.news **