http://www.addictionrecoveryguide.org/articles/

Addiction is a Brain Disease

By   ALAN I. LESHNER, MD

A core concept evolving with scientific advances over the past decade is that drug addiction is a brain disease that develops over time as a result of the initially voluntary behavior of using drugs.  (Drugs include alcohol.)

The consequence is virtually uncontrollable compulsive drug craving, seeking, and use that interferes with, if not destroys, an individual’s functioning in the family and in society.  This medical condition demands formal treatment.

·                            We now know in great detail the brain mechanisms through which drugs acutely modify mood, memory, perception, and emotional states.

·                            Using drugs repeatedly over time changes brain structure and function in fundamental and long-lasting ways that can persist long after the individual stops using them.

·                            Addiction comes about through an array of neuro-adaptive changes and the lying down and strengthening of new memory connections in various circuits in the brain.

The Highjacked Brain
We do not yet know all the relevant mechanisms, but the evidence suggests that those long-lasting brain changes are responsible for the distortions of cognitive and emotional functioning that characterize addicts, particularly including the compulsion to use drugs that is the essence of addiction.

It is as if drugs have highjacked the brain’s natural motivational control circuits, resulting in drug use becoming the sole, or at least the top, motivational priority for the individual.

Thus, the majority of the biomedical community now considers addiction, in its essence, to be a brain disease:

This brain-based view of addiction has generated substantial controversy, particularly among people who seem able to think only in polarized ways.

·                            Many people erroneously still believe that biological and behavioral explanations are alternative or competing ways to understand phenomena, when in fact they are complementary and integrative.

Modern science has taught that it is much too simplistic to set biology in opposition to behavior or to pit willpower against brain chemistry.

·                            Addiction involves inseparable biological and behavioral components.  It is the quintessential bio-behavioral disorder.

Many people also erroneously still believe that drug addiction is simply a failure of will or of strength of character.  Research contradicts that position.

Responsible For Our Recovery
However, the recognition that addiction is a brain disease does not mean that the addict is simply a hapless victim.  Addiction begins with the voluntary behavior of using drugs, and addicts must participate in and take some significant responsibility for their recovery.

·                            Thus, having this brain disease does not absolve the addict of responsibility for his or her behavior.

But it does explain why an addict cannot simply stop using drugs by sheer force of will alone.

The Essence of Addiction
The entire concept of addiction has suffered greatly from imprecision and misconception.  In fact, if it were possible, it would be best to start all over with some new, more neutral term.

The confusion comes about in part because of a now archaic distinction between whether specific drugs are “physically” or “psychologically”addicting.

The distinction historically revolved around whether or not dramatic physical withdrawal symptoms occur when an individual stops taking a drug; what we in the field now call “physical dependence.”

·                            However, 20 years of scientific research has taught that focusing on this physical versus psychological distinction is off the mark and a distraction from the real issues.

From both clinical and policy perspectives, it actually does not matter very much what physical withdrawal symptoms occur.

·                            Physical dependence is not that important, because even the dramatic withdrawal symptoms of heroin and alcohol addiction can now be easily managed with appropriate medications.

·                            Even more important, many of the most dangerous and addicting drugs, including methamphetamine and crack cocaine, do not produce very severe physical dependence symptoms upon withdrawal.

What really matters most is whether or not a drug causes what we now know to be the essence of addiction, namely

·                            The uncontrollable, compulsive drug craving, seeking, and use, even in the face of negative health and social consequences.

This is the crux of how the Institute of Medicine, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Medical Association define addiction and how we all should use the term.

It is really only this compulsive quality of addiction that matters in the long run to the addict and to his or her family and that should matter to society as a whole.

Thus, the majority of the biomedical community now considers addiction, in its essence, to be a brain disease:

·                            A condition caused by persistent changes in brain structure and function.

This results in compulsive craving that overwhelms all other motivations and is the root cause of the massive health and social problems associated with drug addiction.

The Definition of Addiction
In updating our national discourse on drug abuse, we should keep in mind this simple definition:

·                            Addiction is a brain disease expressed in the form of compulsive behavior.

Both developing and recovering from it depend on biology, behavior, and social context.

It is also important to correct the common misimpression that drug use, abuse and addiction are points on a single continuum along which one slides back and forth over time, moving from user to addict, then back to occasional user, then back to addict.

Clinical observation and more formal research studies support the view that, once addicted, the individual has moved into a different state of being.

·                            It is as if a threshold has been crossed.

Very few people appear able to successfully return to occasional use after having been truly addicted.

The Altered Brain - A Chronic Illness
Unfortunately, we do not yet have a clear biological or behavioral marker of that transition from voluntary drug use to addiction.

However, a body of scientific evidence is rapidly developing that points to an array of cellular and molecular changes in specific brain circuits.  Moreover, many of these brain changes are common to all chemical addictions, and some also are typical of other compulsive behaviors such as pathological overeating.

·                            Addiction should be understood as a chronic recurring illness.

·                            Although some addicts do gain full control over their drug use after a single treatment episode, many have relapses.

The complexity of this brain disease is not atypical, because virtually no brain diseases are simply biological in nature and expression.  All, including stroke, Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, and clinical depression, include some behavioral and social aspects.

What may make addiction seem unique among brain diseases, however, is that it does begin with a clearly voluntary behavior- the initial decision to use drugs.  Moreover, not everyone who ever uses drugs goes on to become addicted.

·                            Individuals differ substantially in how easily and quickly they become addicted and in their preferences for particular substances.

Consistent with the bio-behavioral nature of addiction, these individual differences result from a combination of environmental and biological, particularly genetic, factors.

In fact, estimates are that between 50 and 70 percent of the variability in susceptibility to becoming addicted can be accounted for by genetic factors.  Although genetic characteristics may predispose individuals to be more or less susceptible to becoming addicted, genes do not doom one to become an addict.

·                            Over time the addict loses substantial control over his or her initially voluntary behavior, and it becomes compulsive.  For many people these behaviors are truly uncontrollable, just like the behavioral expression of any other brain disease.

Schizophrenics cannot control their hallucinations and delusions.  Parkinson’s patients cannot control their trembling.  Clinically depressed patients cannot voluntarily control their moods.

Thus, once one is addicted, the characteristics of the illness- and the treatment approaches- are not that different from most other brain diseases.  No mater how one develops an illness, once one has it, one is in the diseased state and needs treatment.

Environmental Cues
Addictive behaviors do have special characteristics related to the social contexts in which they originate.

·                            All of the environmental cues surrounding initial drug use and development of the addiction actually become “conditioned” to that drug use and are thus critical to the development and expression of addiction.

Environmental cues are paired in time with an individual’s initial drug use experiences and, through classical conditioning, take on conditioned stimulus properties.

·                            When those cues are present at a later time, they elicit anticipation of a drug experience and thus generate tremendous drug craving.

Cue-induced craving is one of the most frequent causes of drug use relapses, even after long periods of abstinence, independently of whether drugs are available.

The salience of environmental or contextual cues helps explain why reentry to one’s community can be so difficult for addicts leaving the controlled environments of treatment or correctional settings and why aftercare is so essential to successful recovery.

·                            The person who became addicted in the home environment is constantly exposed to the cues conditioned to his or her initial drug use, such as the neighborhood where he or she hung out, drug-using buddies, or the lamppost where he or she bought drugs.

·                            Simple exposure to those cues automatically triggers craving and can lead rapidly to relapses.

This is one reason why someone who apparently overcame drug cravings while in prison or residential treatment could quickly revert to drug use upon returning home.

In fact, one of the major goals of drug addiction treatment is to teach addicts how to deal with the cravings caused by inevitable exposure to these conditioned cues.

Implications
It is no wonder addicts cannot simply quit on their own.

They have an illness that requires biomedical treatment.

·                            People often assume that because addiction begins with a voluntary behavior and is expressed in the form of excess behavior, people should just be able to quit by force of will alone.

·                            However, it is essential to understand when dealing with addicts that we are dealing with individuals whose brains have been altered by drug use.

They need drug addiction treatment.

We know that, contrary to common belief, very few addicts actually do just stop on their own.

Observing that there are very few heroin addicts in their 50s or 60s, people frequently ask what happened to those who were heroin addicts 30 years ago, assuming that they must have quit on their own.

·                            However, longitudinal studies find that only a very small fraction actually quit on their own.  The rest have either been successfully treated, are currently in maintenance treatment, or (for about half) are dead.

Consider the example of smoking cigarettes:  Various studies have found that between 3 and 7 percent of people who try to quit on their own each year actually succeed.

Science has at last convinced the public that depression is not just a lot of sadness; that depressed individuals are in a different brain state and thus require treatment to get their symptoms under control.  It is time to recognize that this is also the case for addicts.

The Role of Personal Responsibility
The role of personal responsibility is undiminished but clarified.

Does having a brain disease mean that people who are addicted no longer have any responsibility for their behavior or that they are simply victims of their own genetics and brain chemistry?  Of course not.

Addiction begins with the voluntary behavior of drug use, and although genetic characteristics may predispose individuals to be more or less susceptible to becoming addicted, genes do not doom one to become an addict.

This is one major reason why efforts to prevent drug use are so vital to any comprehensive strategy to deal with the nation’s drug problems.  Initial drug use is a voluntary, and therefore preventable, behavior.

Moreover, as with any illness, behavior becomes a critical part of recovery.  At a minimum, one must comply with the treatment regimen, which is harder than it sounds.

·                            Treatment compliance is the biggest cause of relapses for all chronic illnesses, including asthma, diabetes, hypertension, and addiction.

·                            Moreover, treatment compliance rates are no worse for addiction than for these other illnesses, ranging from 30 to 50 percent.

Thus, for drug addiction as well as for other chronic diseases, the individual’s motivation and behavior are clearly important parts of success in treatment and recovery.

Alcohol/ Drug Treatment Programs
Maintaining this comprehensive bio-behavioral understanding of addiction also speaks to what needs to be provided in drug treatment programs.

·                            Again, we must be careful not to pit biology against behavior.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse’s recently published Principles of Effective Drug Addiction Treatment provides a detailed discussion of how we must treat all aspects of the individual, not just the biological component or the behavioral component.

As with other brain diseases such as schizophrenia and depression, the data show that the best drug addiction treatment approaches attend to the entire individual, combining the use of medications, behavioral therapies, and attention to necessary social services and rehabilitation.

·                            These might include such services as family therapy to enable the patient to return to successful family life, mental health services, education and vocational training, and housing services.

That does not mean, of course, that all individuals need all components of treatment and all rehabilitation services. Another principle of effective addiction treatment is that the array of services included in an individual's treatment plan must be matched to his or her particular set of needs. Moreover, since those needs will surely change over the course of recovery, the array of services provided will need to be continually reassessed and adjusted.

We believe holistic approaches ranging from brain wave biofeedback to yoga and acupuncture are an important part  of the "array of  services" to which he refers.

Recommended Reading
J. D. Berke and S. E. Hyman, "Addiction, Dopamine, and the Molecular Mechanisms of Memory," Neuron 25 (2000): 515~532 (http://www.neuron.org/cgi/content/full/25/3/515/).

H. Garavan, J. Pankiewicz, A. Bloom, J. K. Cho, L. Sperry, T. J. Ross, B. J. Salmeron, R. Risinger, D. Kelley, and E. A. Stein, "Cue-Induced Cocaine Craving: Neuroanatomical Specificity for Drug Users and Drug Stimuli," American Journal of Psychiatry 157 (2000): 1789~1798 (ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/157/11/1789).

A. I. Leshner, "Science-Based Views of Drug Addiction and Its Treatment," Journal of the American Medical Association 282 (1999): 1314~1316
(jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=191976).

A. T. McLellan, D. C. Lewis, C. P. O'Brien, and H. D. Kleber, "Drug Dependence, a Chronic Medical Illness," Journal of the American Medical Association 284 (2000): 1689~1695 (jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/284/13/1689).

National Institute on Drug Abuse, Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research-Based Guide (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, July 2000) (www.nida.nih.gov/PODAT/PODATindex.html).

National Institute on Drug Abuse, Preventing Drug Use Among Children and Adolescents: A Research-Based Guide(National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, March 1997) (www.nida.nih.gov/Prevention/Prevopen.html).

E. J. Nestler, "Genes and Addiction," Nature Genetics 26 (2000): 277~281 (www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/ng/journal/v26/n3/full/ng1100_277.html).

Physician Leadership on National Drug Policy, position paper on drug policy (PLNDP Program Office, Brown University, Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, Providence, R.I.: January 2000) (plndp.org/Resources/resources.html).

F. S. Taxman and J. A. Bouffard, "The Importance of Systems in Improving Offender Outcomes: New Frontiers in Treatment Integrity," Justice Research and Policy 2 (2000): 37~58.

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Alan I. Leshner is the former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at
The National Institutes of Health.

Drug War Injustice and Us: Who's Fighting Wildfires?#links

Drug War Injustice and Us: Who's Fighting Wildfires?#links

Drug War Injustice and Us: Who's Fighting Wildfires?#links

Drug War Injustice and Us: Who's Fighting Wildfires?#links

WOMEN DRUG USERS AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
by Alasdair Cant.
It is impossible to put an exact figure on the number of drug using women who come into contact with the criminal justice system, for the same reason that it is impossible to assess the exact proportion of drug users - because of the illegal and stigmatised nature of drug use. However, there are findings, both anecdotal and researched that give us some indication as to how drug using women are faring in the criminal justice system.
About prisons, Oscar Wilde said:
"..every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim."
The term brothers in the last line is interesting. Historically, it is a true reflection of the gender imbalance in the prison population. Increasingly, however, 'brothers and sisters' would be more accurate. Although there are still far more men imprisoned than women, approximately four per cent of the adult prison population in the UK are women, the number of women in prison has been rising steadily in recent years.
In England and Wales, sentencing has become harsher, and women have been caught up by this trend. The 17 per cent rise in the number of women in prison compared to this time last year, reflects an overall trend in sentencing. The female prison population in March, stood at just under 2,000, an increase of around 11 per cent in 12 months. Contrary to popular belief, this is not due to any rising tide of female violence, least of all 'girl gangs'. This is, if I may use a little more alliteration, a media myth. According to the Prison Service, the number of women sent to prison for motoring offences has doubled in the past year, while those imprisoned for drug-related crimes has fallen by one third. The biggest single factor that results in women being given custodial sentences, is still that of non-payment of fines, which accounts for about a third of the women being jailed.
I wish to look at the thorny issue of sentencing, and in particular at the disparity in sentencing between men and women. We have to look carefully at this whole question, because the danger is to give a simplistic answer, which could then give rise to wrong assumptions.
The extent to which sentencers, and especially judges are predominantly men, is well catalogued. This situation has not improved much over the last few years, in spite of much publicity over this discrepancy. The scenario runs much along these lines:
A woman appears in the dock, looking down at heel, and evidently an established drug user. The male sentencer (wearing de rigueur half moon spectacles) is shocked at extent to which this woman has deviated from the 'normal path'. Normal to him, is a subjective judgement about how women should appear and behave. Hence he gives a harsher sentence than he might give to an equivalent male defendant.
Is this borne out by research and observation? Release has certainly observed that, in terms of sentencing alone, women are discriminated against in the courts on occasions, but not always. There have been instances, especially for first time offenders, where women drug users have seemed to get particularly harsh sentences. So, yes, this scenario does occur- in a variety of different shades and variations. But as in many situations where stereotyping is prevalent, it is not the whole picture.
Conversely, the Release legal advisers are aware that women do sometimes get treated more leniently by the courts. There may be convincing reasons why she should not go to prison, and in circumstances where it hangs in the balance, good legal representation and effective court report writing has made all the difference. Anyone who has been in a court of law will recognise that it is an artificial setting, designed to raise the stature of some, and humble the others. In blunt terms, it is something of a 'game', and I use this word with caution, because I don't wish to trivialise the seriousness of attending court, but rather draw attention to the fact that doing and saying the correct things is often in the best interests of the defendant. Women do seem to take on board better than men the hidden rules of attending a court - deferring to the court, dressing smartly, being polite to the bench and so on. However, this is anecdotal observation. What about evidence in research?
Criminal statistics across time and cultures, show that an overwhelming majority of those caught, convicted and sentenced by the courts are male. As well as this, numerous pieces of research, including findings from feminist criminology, suggest that men are more likely than women to receive custodial sentences for equivalent offences. According to most recent Home Office statistics, however, the notable exception to this is for drug offences, where the proportion of males to females sentenced to custody is roughly equal.
In the case of cautioning, the same situation seems to apply, where a conviction is the most common outcome for female offenders. In 1992, 61 per cent of all females convicted or cautioned for indictable offences received a caution, compared with 36 per cent of males. Women had higher cautioning rates across all age groups and most offences, but yet again, the exception to this was where drugs are involved.
So what do we make of this? Statistically, it does seem that where drugs and women are concerned, they buck the overall trend of women getting more lenient sentences from the courts. However, we must be very wary of drawing immediate conclusions from this. There are still too many unknowns. To properly research sentencing, many more factors must be taken into account, such as a detailed analysis of each case, taking previous offending, aggravating/mitigating circumstances and so on into account. My own observation in our local magistrates court makes me a little sceptical of research. The reason is that the character of the magistrates sentencing is as different as you are likely to find anywhere in London. One magistrate is renown for his harsh sentencing, and indeed demonstrated how in touch with reality he was by stopping court proceedings to ask what a can of Lilt is! The other is much more lenient, and I have heard him once suggesting to one defendent that he felt 10 pounds a week was too much to pay, and 5 per week over a longer period was much more realistic. Hence, someone tried in court on Monday afternoon might get a very different sentence from someone tried in court on Tuesday morning for exactly the same offence. Such factors must surely make accurate research nigh on impossible.
In trying to analyse the significance of data about women drug users in the criminal justice system, it is easy to lose sight of important overall concerns. It does seem for example that female drug users are discriminated against in the courts, but drug users generally are misrepresented and discriminated against in our society. Where should we direct our energies and resources to counter this?
Secondly, is there equally suitable provision for women as for men throughout the criminal justice system? In a system which deals largely with male offenders, the needs of women offenders are often not effectively addressed. An investigation by HM Inspectorate of Probation in 1991 found that a limited range of community penalties are available for women in some areas. This has been an on-going situation and probation officers often complain to me about the lack of provision for women. There are only a handful of bail hostels in the country that are for women only. There is Crowley House in Birmingham, where women are taken with children, but this serves a massive area. There is also Adelaide House in Liverpool and Kelley House in Camden, London. That is pitifully little provision for the whole of England and Wales. Proximity to men in custody, whether in a bail hostel or in prison, can be very distressing. The men may have records of violence, and research by the charity Women in Prison, shows that a high proportion of women prisoners have been victimised and abused by men. In mixed bail hostels, for example, out of 26 residents, it is quite usual for there to be only about four women
It is little wonder then, that where the question of custody hangs in the balance for drug using women, it often swings towards custody because of inadequate provision outside. Imaginative remand schemes that divert women from crime and custody by developing community-based programmes must be encouraged. I can cite one example as the Holloway Remand Scheme in London. Its function is to closely match and utilise community resources for selected women offenders. These resources include residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes, but we are all too aware that one of the difficulties facing field probation officers is finding suitable resources for women in the community.
In considering prisons, the report on Styal prison and young offender institution for women, received a lot of publicity. The fact that drugs are used in prison is no longer headline news, but when this report was released, it received a lot of attention. In fact, it received more media attention in one week than the plight of foreign nationals being held in custody for drug trafficking offences (a staggering 35 per cent in one of the largest women's prisons in England) received over 18 months. I believe the reason for such interest in drugs in Styal was for two reasons. Firstly, the public is not aware of the extent of drug use among women, as it conflicts with the stereotyped image. Secondly, the extent of use as reported, took everyone by surprise, including those in the drugs field. The report by Dr Malcolm Faulk states:
"Inmates asserted, and staff agreed, that drugs were freely available in Styal, mainly brought in by visitors and by inmates who had been on home leave. They said that almost all inmates used cannabis, in addition to which 80 per cent used opiates (mainly heroin), 50 per cent cocaine/crack,15-20 per cent amphetamines, ten per cent LSD occasionally and 60 per cent benzodiazepines (mainly Temazepam). It was believed that 60 per cent of those who injected used shared needles. Inmates were aware of the risk of contaminated needles. Detergent was available but not bleach." (Extract from report of an unannounced short inspection of Styal.)
Styal prison had 207 female prisoners at the time of the inspection, 52 of whom had been convicted of, or were charged with drug-related offences. That works out at around 25 per cent, yet health care staff at the prison estimated that up to 90 per cent of inmates were using drugs during their stay at Styal. Yet there was no detoxification process, and little rehabilitation.
What conclusions can we draw from this? The overriding concern Release has, is that women are actually being put at risk by the state. This is not simply conjecture. On 4 February 1995, the British Medical Journal published an abstract of the first report of an outbreak of HIV infection occurring within a prison.
At Glenochil prison in Scotland, of a total of 378 male inmates, 227 (60 per cent) were counselled and 162 (43 per cent) tested for H IV. Twelve (seven per cent) of those tested were HIV positive. One third (76) of those counselled had injected drugs at some time, of whom 33 (43 per cent) had injected in Glenochil; all 12 seropositive men belonged to this group, and 32 of the 33 had shared needles and syringes in the prison. Evidence based on sequential results and time of entry into prison indicated that eight transmissions definitely occurred within the prison in the first half of 1993.
Release, along with many other organisations has plenty of anecdotal evidence that there is a high likelyhood of HIV infection occurring within a prison. For many years we have actively supported the view that at very least clean needles should be supplied in prisons. The findings at Styal were extremely alarming. But it is even more alarming that a significant piece of research should follow so quickly to confirm that in a similar environment "restricted access to injecting equipment resulted in random sharing and resulted in an outbreak of HIV infection".
In conclusion, since most women are not seen to posethreat to the community, and drug using women would be generally included in this, there is a strong argument for abolishing prison as a punishment for such offenders altogether. Added to this, there is now no question that the lives of many women in custody are at risk, and we wholeheartedly support the view of the academics academedics involved in the Glenochil prison research, that in the short term at very least, measures to prevent further spread of infection among prison injectors are urgently required.
But to give the final word to a woman prisoner:
"I don't think anything can be done that's going to be constructive until they get rid of the way they treat women and see women. If you're not like their women - Ah then we've got you like our women".
Alasdair Cant is training manager at Release.

Part One: The Overview
Government Seizures Victimize Innocent
February 27, 1991.
Willie Jones, a second-generation nursery man in his family's Nashville business, bundles up money from last year's profits and heads off to buy flowers and shrubs in Houston. He makes this trip twice a year using cash, which the small growers prefer.
But this time, as he waits at the American Airlines gate in Nashville Metro Airport, he's flanked by two police officers who escort him into a small office, search him and seize the $9,600 he's carrying. A ticket agent had alerted the officers that a large black man had paid for his ticket in bills, unusual these days. Because of the cash, and the fact that he fit a "profile" of what drug dealers supposedly look like, they believed he was buying or selling drugs.
He's free to go, he's told. But they keep his money -- his livelihood -- and give him a receipt in its place.
No evidence of wrongdoing was ever produced. No charges were ever filed. As far as anyone knows, Willie Jones neither uses drugs, nor buys or sells them. He is a gardening contractor who bought an airplane ticket. Who lost his hard-earned money to the cops. And can't get it back.
That same day, an ocean away in Hawaii, federal drug agents arrive at the Maui home of retirees Joseph and Frances Lopes and claim it for the U.S. government.
For 49 years, Lopes worked on a sugar plantation, living in its camp housing before buying a modest home for himself, his wife, and their adult, mentally disturbed son, Thomas.
For a while, Thomas grew marijuana in the back yard -- and threatened to kill himself every time his parents tried to cut it down. In 1987, the police caught Thomas, then 28. He pleaded guilty, got probation for his first offense and was ordered to see a psychologist once a week. He has, and never again has grown dope or been arrested. The family thought this episode was behind them.
But earlier this year, a detective scouring old arrest records for forfeiture opportunities realized the Lopes house could be taken away because they had admitted they knew about the marijuana.
The police department stands to make a bundle. If the house is sold, the police get the proceeds.
Jones and the Lopes family are among the thousands of Americans each year victimized by the federal seizure law -- a law meant to curb drugs by causing financial hardship to dealers.
A 10-month study by The Pittsburgh Press shows the law has run amok. In their zeal to curb drugs and sometimes fill their coffers with the proceeds of what they take, local cops, federal agents and the courts have curbed innocent Americans' civil rights. From Maine to Hawaii, people who are never charged with a crime had cars, boats, money and homes taken away.
In fact, 80 percent of the people who lost property to the federal government were never charged. And most of the seized items weren't the luxurious playthings of drug barons, but modest homes and simple cars and hard-earned savings of ordinary people.
But those goods generated $2 billion for the police departments that took them.
The owners' only crimes in many of these cases: They "looked" like drug dealers. They were black, Hispanic or flashily dressed.
Others, like the Lopeses, have been connected to a crime by circumstances beyond their control.
Says Eric Sterling, who helped write the law a decade ago as a awyer on a congressional committee: "The innocent-until-proven- guilty concept is gone out the window.
Airport drug team sieze cash from travelers suspected of being couriers
The Law: Guilt Doesn't Matter
Rooted in English common law, forfeiture has surfaced just twice in the United States since colonial times.
In 1862, Congress permitted the president to seize estates of Confederate soldiers. Then, in 1970, it resurrected forfeiture for the civil war on drugs with the passage of racketeering laws that targeted the assets of criminals.
In 1984 however, the nature of the law was radically changed to allow government to take possession without first charging, let alone convicting the owner. That was done in an effort to make it easier to strike at the heart of the major drug dealers. Cops knew that drug dealers consider prison time an inevitable cost of doing business. It rarely deters them. Profits and playthings, though, are their passions. Losing them hurts.
And there was a bonus in the law. the proceeds would flow back to law enforcement to finance more investigations. It was to be the ultimate poetic justice, with criminals financing their own undoing.
But eliminating the necessity of charging or proving a crime has moved most of the action to civil court, where the government accuses the item -- not the owner -- of being tainted by a crime.
This oddity has court dockets looking like purchase orders: United States of America vs. 9.6 acres of land and lake; U.S. vs. 667 bottles of wine. But it's more than just a labeling change. Because money and property are at stake instead of life and liberty, the constitutional safeguards in criminal proceedings do not apply.
The result is that "jury trials can be refused; illegal searches condoned; rules of evidence ignored," says Louisville, Ky. defense lawyer Donald Heavrin. The "frenzied quest for cash," he says, is "destroying the judicial system."
Every crime package passed since 1984 has expanded the uses of forfeiture, and now there are more than 100 statutes in place at the state and federal level. Not just for drug cases anymore, forfeiture covers the likes of money laundering, fraud, gambling, importing tainted meats and carrying intoxicants onto Indian land.
The White House, Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration say they've made the most of the expanded law in getting the big-time criminals, and they boast of seizing mansions, planes and millions in cash. But the Pittsburgh Press in just 10 months was able to document 510 current cases that involved innocent people -- or those possessing a very small amount of drugs -- who lost their possessions.
And DEA's own database contradicts the official line. It showed that big-ticket items -- valued at more than $50,000 -- were only 17 percent of the total 25,297 items seized by DEA during the 18 months that ended last December.
"If you want to use that 'war on drugs' analogy, the forfeiture is like giving the troops permission to loot," says Thomas Lorenzi, presidentelect of the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
The near-obsession with forfeiture continues without any proof that it curbs drug crime -- its original target.
"The reality is, it's very difficult to tell what the impact of drug seizure is," says Stanley Morris, deputy director of the federal drug czar's office.

Police Forces Keep the Take
The "loot" that's coming back to police forces all over the nation has redefined law-enforcement success. It now has a dollar sign in front of it.
For nearly eighteen months, undercover Arizona State Troopers worked as drug couriers driving nearly 13 tons of marijuana from the Mexican border to stash houses around Tucson. They hoped to catch the Mexican suppliers and distributors on the American side before the dope got on the streets.
But they overestimated their ability to control the distribution. Almost every ounce was sold the minute they dropped it at the houses.
Even though the troopers were responsible for tons of drugs getting loose in Tucson, the man who supervised the setup still believes it was worthwhile. It was "a success from a cost-benefit standpoint," says former assistant attorney-general John Davis. His reasoning: It netted 20 arrests and at least $3 million for the state forfeiture fund.
"That kind of thinking is what frightens me," says Steve Sherick, a Tucson attorney. "The government's thirst for dollars is overcoming any long-range view of what it is supposed to be doing, which is fighting crime."
George Terwilliger III, associate deputy attorney general in charge of the U.S. Justice Department's program emphasizes that forfeiture does fight crime, and "we're not at all apologetic about the fact that we do benefit (financially) from it."
In fact, Terwilliger wrote about how the forfeiture program financially benefits police departments in the 1991 Police Buyer's Guide of Police Chief Magazine.
Between 1986 and 1990, the U.S. Justice Department generated $1.5 billion from forfeiture and estimates that it will take in $500 million this year, five times the amount it collected in 1986.
District attorney's offices throughout Pennsylvania handled $4.5 million in forfeitures last year; Allegheny County (ED: Pgh is in Allegheny County) $218,000, and the city of Pittsburgh, $191,000 -- up from $9,000 four years ago.
Forfeiture pads the smallest towns coffers. In Lexana, Kan, a Kansas City suburb of 29,000, "we've got about $250,000 moving in court right now," says narcotic detective Don Crohn.
Despite the huge amounts flowing to police departments, there are few public accounting procedures. Police who get a cut of the federal forfeiture funds must sign a form saying merely they will use it for "law enforcement purposes."
To Philadelphia police that meant new air conditioning. In Warren County, N.J., it meant use of a forfeited yellow Corvette for the chief assistant prosecutor.
Judy Mulford, 31, and her 13-year old twins, Chris, left, and Jason, are down to essentials in their Lake Park, Fla., home, which the government took in 1989 after claiming her husband, Joseph, stored cocaine there. Neither parent has been criminally charged, but in April a forfeiture jury said Mrs. Mulford must forfeit the house she bought herself with an insurance settlement. The Mulfords have divorced, and she has sold most of her belongings to cover legal bills. She's asked for a new trial and lives in the near-empty house pending a decision.

'Looking' Like a Criminal
Ethel Hylton of New York City has yet to regain her financial independence after losing $39,110 in a search nearly three years ago in Hobby Airport in Houston.
Shortly after she arrived from New York, a Houston officer and Drug Enforcement Administration agent stopped the 46-year-old woman in the baggage area and told her she was under arrest because a drug dog had scratched at her luggage. The dog wasn't with them, and when Miss Hylton asked to see it, the officers refused to bring it out.
The agents searched her bags, and ordered a strip search of Miss Hylton, but found no contraband.
In her purse they found the cash Miss Hylton carried because she planned to buy a house to escape the New York winters which exacerbated her diabetes. It was the settlement from an insurance claim, and her life's savings, gathered through more than 20 years of work as a hotel housekeeper and hospital night janitor.
The police seized all but $10 of the cash and sent Miss Hylton on her way, keeping the money because of its alleged drug connection. But they never charged her with a crime.
The Pittsburgh Press verified her jobs, reviewed her bank statements and substantiated her claim she had $18,000 from an insurance settlement. It also found no criminal record for her in New York City.
With the mix of outrage and resignation voiced by other victims of searches, she says: "The money they took was mine. I'm allowed to have it. I earned it."
Miss Hylton became a U.S. citizen six years ago. She asks, "Why did they stop me? Is it because I'm black or because I'm Jamaican?"
Probably, both -- although Houston police haven't said.
Drug teams interviewed in dozens of airports, train stations and bus terminals and along other major highways repeatedly said they didn't stop travellers based on race. But a Pittsburgh Press examination of 121 travellers' cases in which police found no dope, made no arrest, but seized money anyway showed that 77 percent of the people stopped were black, Hispanic, or Asian.
In April, 1989, deputies from Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana, seized $23,000 from Johnny Sotello, a Mexican-American whose truck overheated on a highway.
They offered help, he accepted. They asked to search his truck. He agreed. They asked if he was carrying cash. He said he was because he was scouting heavy equipment auctions.
They then pulled a door panel from the truck, said the space behind it could have hidden drugs, and seized the money and the truck, court records show. Police did not arrest Sotello but told him he would have to go to court to recover his property.
Sotello sent auctioneer's receipts to police which showed he was a licensed buyer. the sheriff offered to settle the case, and with his legal bills mounting after two years, Sotello accepted. In a deal cut last March, he got his truck, but only half his money. The cops kept $11,500.
"I was more afraid of the banks than anything -- that's one reason I carry cash," says Sotello. "But a lot of places won't take checks, only cash, or cashier's checks for the exact amount. I never heard of anybody saying you couldn't carry cash."
Affidavits show the same deputy who stopped Sotello routinely stopped the cars or black and Hispanic drivers, exacting "donations" from some.
After another of the deputy's stops, two black men from Atlanta handed over $1,000 for a "drug fund" after being detained for hours, according to a hand-written receipt reviewed by the Pittsburgh Press.
The driver got a ticket for "following too close." Back home, they got a lawyer.
Their attorney, in a letter to the Sheriff's department, said deputies had made the men "fear for their safety, and in direct exploitation of that fear a purported donation of $1000 was extracted..."
If they "were kind enough to give the money to the sheriff's office," the letter said, "then you can be kind enough to give it back." If they gave the money "under other circumstances, then give the money back so we can avoid litigation."
Six days later, the sheriff's department mailed the men a $1,000 check.
Last year, the 72 deputies of Jefferson Davis Parish led the state in forfeitures, gathering $1 million -- more than their colleagues in New Orleans, a city 17 times larger than the parish.
Like most states, Louisiana returns the money to law enforcement agencies, but it has one of the more unusual distributions: 60 percent goes to the police bringing a case, 20 percent to the district attorney's office prosecuting it and 20 percent to the court fund of the judge signing the forfeiture order.
"The highway stops aren't much different from a smash-and-grab ring," says Lorenzi, of the Louisiana Defense Lawyers Association.
George Terwillger, who helps set justice Department's forfeiture policy, calls the law "effective."
Paying For Your Innocence
The Justice Department's Terwilliger says that in some cases "dumb judgement" may occasionally cause problems, but he believes there is an adequate solution. "That's why we have courts."
But the notion that courts are a safeguard for citizens wrongly accused "is way off," says Thomas Kerner, a forfeiture lawyer in Boston. "Compared to forfeiture, David and Goliath was a fair fight."
Starting from the moment that the government serves notice that it intends to take an item, until any court challenge is completed, "the government gets all the breaks," says Kerner.
The government need only show probable cause for a seizure, a standard no greater than what is needed to get a search warrant. The lower standard means the government can take a home without any more evidence than it normally needs to take a look inside.
Clients who challenge the government, says attorney Edward Hinson of Charlotte, N.C., "have the choice of fighting the full resources of the U.S. treasury or caving in."
Barry Kolin caved in.
Kolin watched Portland, Ore., police padlock the doors of Harvey's, his bar and restaurant for bookmaking on March 2.
Earlier that day, eight police officers and Amy Holmes Hehn, the Multnomah County deputy district attorney, had swept into the bar, shooed out waitresses and customers and arrested Mike Kolin, Barry's brother and bartender, on suspicion of bookmaking.
Nothing in the police documents mentioned Barry Kolin, and so the 40-year-old was stunned when authorities took his business, saying they believe he knew about the betting. He denied it.
Hehn concedes she did not have the evidence to press a criminal case against Barry Kolin, "so we seized the business civilly."
During a recess in a hearing on the seizures weeks later, "the deputy DA says if I paid them $30,000 I could open up again," Kolin recalls. When the deal dropped to $10,000, Kolin took it.
Kolin's lawyer, Jenny Cooke, calls the seizure "extortion." She says: "There is no difference between what the police did to Barry Kolin or what Al Capone did in Chicago when he walked in and said, 'This is a nice little bar and it's mine.' the only difference is today they call this civil forfeiture."

Minor Crimes, Major Penalties
Forfeiture's tremendous clout helps make it "one of the most effective tools that we have," says Terwilliger.
The clout, though, puts property owners at risk of losing more under forfeiture that they would in a criminal case under the same circumstances.
Criminal charges in federal and many state courts carry maximum sentences. But there's no dollar cap on forfeiture, leaving citizens open to punishment that far exceeds the crime.
Robert Brewer of Irwin, Idaho, is dying of prostate cancer, and uses marijuana to ease the pain and nausea that comes with radiation treatments.
Last Oct. 10, a dozen deputies and Idaho tax agents walked into the Brewer's living room with guns drawn and said they had a warrant to search.
The Brewers, Robert, 61, and Bonita, 44, both retired form the postal service, moved from Kansas City, Mo., to the tranquil, wooded valley of Irwin in 1989. Six months later, he was diagnosed.
According to police reports, an informant told authorities Brewer ran a major marijuana operation.
The drug SWAT team found eight plants in the basement under a grow light and a half-pound of marijuana. The Brewers were charged with two felony narcotics counts and two charges for failing to buy state tax stamps for the dope.
"I didn't like the idea of the marijuana, but it was the only thing that controlled his pain," Mrs. Brewer says.
The government seized the couples five-year-old Ford van that allowed him to lie down during his twice-a-month trips for cancer treatment at a Salt Lake City hospital, 270 miles away. Now they must go by car.
"That's a long painful ride for him ... He needed that van, and the government took it," Mrs. Brewer says. "It looks like they can punish people any way they see fit."
The Brewers know nothing about the informant who turned them in, but informants play a big role in forfeiture. Many of them are paid, targeting property in return for a cut of anything that is taken.
The Justice Department's asset forfeiture fund paid $24 mil. to informants in 1990 and has $22 million allocated this year.
Private citizens who snitch for a fee are everywhere. Some airline counter clerks receive cash awards for alerting drug agents to "suspicious" travellers. The practice netted Melissa Furtner, a Continental Airlines clerk in Denver, at least $5,800 between 1989 and 1990, photocopies of checks show.
Increased surveillance, recruitment of citizen-cops, and expansion of forfeiture sweeps are all part of a take-now, litigate-later syndrome that builds prosecutors careers, says a former federal prosecutor.
"Federal law enforcement people are the most ambitious I've ever met, and to get ahead they need visible results. Visible results are convictions, and, now, forfeitures," says Don Lewis of Meadville, Crawford County. (ED: a Pa county north of Pgh by two counties.)
Lewis spent 17 years as a prosecutor, serving as an assistant U.S. attorney in Tampa as recently as 1988. He left the Tampa Job -- and became a defense lawyer -- when "I found myself tempted to do things I wouldn't have thought about doing years ago."
Terwilliger insists U.S. attorneys would never be evaluated on "something as unprofessional as dollars."
Which is not to say Justice doesn't watch the bottom line.
Cary Copeland, director of the department' Executive Office for Asset Forfeiture, says they tried to "squeeze the pipeline" in 1990 when the amount forfeited lagged behind Justice's budget projections.
He said this was done by speeding up the process, not by doing a "whole lot of seizures."
Ending the Abuse
While defense lawyers talk of reforming the law, agencies that initiate forfeiture scarcely talk at all.
DEA headquarters makes a spectacle of busts like the seizure of fraternity houses at the University of Virginia in March. But it refuses to supply detailed information on the small cases that account for most of its activity.
Local prosecutors are just as tight-lipped. Thomas Corbett, U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania, seals court documents on forfeitures because "there are just some things I don't want to publicize. the person whose assets we seize will eventually know, and who else has to?"
Although some investigations need to be protected, there is an "inappropriate secrecy" spreading throughout the country, says Jeffrey Weiner, president-elect of the 25,000 member National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
"The Justice Department boasts of the few big fish they catch. But they throw a cloak of secrecy over the information on how many innocent people are getting swept up in the same seizure net, so no one can see the enormity of the atrocity."
Terwilliger says the net catches the right people: "bad guys" as he calls them.
But a 1990 Justice report on drug task forces in 15 states found they stayed away from the in-depth financial investigations needed to cripple major traffickers. Instead, "they're going for the easy stuff," says James "Chip" Coldren, Jr., executive director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, a research arm of the federal Justice Department.
Lawyers who say the law needs to be changed start with the basics: The government shouldn't be allowed to take property until after it proves the owner guilty of a crime.
But they go on to list other improvements, including having police abide by their state laws, which often don't give police as much latitude as the federal law. Now they can use federal courts to circumvent the state.
Tracy Thomas is caught in that very bind.
A jurisprudence version of the shell game hides roughly $13,000 taken from Thomas, a resident of Chester, near Philadelphia.
Thomas was visiting in his godson's home on Memorial Day, 1990, when local police entered looking for drugs allegedly sold by the godson. They found none and didn't file a criminal charge in the incident. But they seized $13,000 from Thomas, who works as a $70,000-a-year engineer, says his attorney, Clinton Johnson.
The cash was left over from a Sheriff's sale he'd attended a few days before, court records show. the sale required cash -- much like the government's own auctions.
During a hearing over the seized money, Thomas presented a withdrawal slip showing he'd removed money from his credit union shortly before the trip and a receipt showing how much he had paid for the property he'd bought at the sale. The balance was $13,000.
On June 22, 1990, a state judge ordered Chester police to return Thomas' cash.
They haven't.
Just before the court order was issued, the police turned over the cash to the DEA for processing as a federal case, forcing Thomas to fight another level of government. Thomas is now suing the Chester police, the arresting officer, and the DEA.
"When DEA took over that money, what they in effect told a local police department is that it's OK to break the law," says Clinton Johnson, attorney for Thomas.
Police manipulate the courts not only to make it harder on owners to recover property, but to make it easier for police to get a hefty share of any forfeited goods. In federal court, local police are guaranteed up to 80 percent of the take -- a percentage that may be more than they'd receive under state law.
Pennsylvania's leading police agency-- the state police -- and the state's lead prosecutor -- the Attorney General -- bickered for two years over state police taking cases to federal court, an arrangement that cut the Attorney General out of the sharing.
The two state agencies now have a written agreement on how to divvy the take.
The same debate is heard around the nation.
The hallways outside Cleveland courtrooms ring with arguments over who will get what, says Jay Milano, a Cleveland criminal defense attorney.
"It's causing a feeding frenzy."
GOVERNMENT SEIZED HOME OF MAN WHO WAS GOING BLIND
James Burton says he loves America and wants to come home. But he can't. If he does, he'll wind up in prison, go blind, or both. Burton and his wife, Linda, live in an austere, concrete-slab apartment furnished with lawn chairs near Rotterdam in the Netherlands. It is home much different from the large house and 90-acre farm they owned near Bowling Green, Ky., before the government seized both.
For Burton, who has glaucoma, home-grown marijuana provided his relief - and his undoing.
Since 1972, federal health secretaries have reported to Congress that marijuana is beneficial in the treatment of glaucoma and several other medical conditions.
Yet while some officials within the Drug Enforcement Administration have acknowledged that medical value of marijuana, drug agents continue to seize property where chronically ill people grow it.
"Because of the emotional rhetoric connected with the marijuana issue, a doctor who can prescribe cocaine, morphine, amphetamines, and barbiturates cannot prescribe marijuana, which is the safest therapeutically active drug known to man," Francis Young, administrative law judge for DEA, was quoted as saying in Burton's trial.
In an interview this past July 4, Burton said, "We don't really have any choice right now but to stay" in the Netherlands, where they moved after he completed a one-year jail term for three counts of marijuana possession. "I can buy or grow marijuana here legally, and if I don't have the marijuana, I'll go blind.
Burton, a 43-year-old Vietnam War veteran, has a rare form of hereditary, low-tension glaucoma. All of the men on his mother's side of the family have the disease, and several already are blind. It does not respond to traditional medications.
At the time of Burton's arrest, N.C. ophthalmologist Dr. John Merritt was the only physician authorized by he government to test marijuana in the treatment of glaucoma patients. Merritt testified at Burton's trial that marijuana was "the only medication' that could keep him from going blind.
On July 7, 1987 Kentucky state police raided Burton's farm and found 138 marijuana plants and two pounds of raw marijuana. "It was the kickoff of Kentucky drug awareness month, and I was their special kickoff feature. It was all over television," Burton said.
Burton admitted growing enough marijuana to produce about a pound a month for the 10 to 15 cigarettes he uses each day to reduce pressure in his eye.
A jury decided he grew the dope for his own use - not to sell, as the government contended - and in March 1988 found him guilty of three counts of simple possession.
The pre-sentence report on Burton shows he had no previous arrests. The judge sentenced him to a year in a federal maximum security prison, with no parole.
On top of that, the government took his farm: 90 rolling, wooded acres in Warren Country purchased for $34,701 in 1980 and assessed at twice that amount when it was taken.
On March 27, 1989, U.S. District Judge Ronald Meredith - without hearing any witnesses and without allowing Burton to testify in his own behalf - ordered the farm forfeited and gave the Burtons 10 days to get off the land. When owners of property live at a site while marijuana is growing in their presence, there is no defense to forfeiture," Meredith ruled.
"I never got to say two words in defense of keeping my home, something we worked and saved for for 18 years," said Burton, who was a master electrical technician. Linda, 41, worked for an insurance company. "On a serious matter like taking a person's home, you'd think the government would give you a chance to defend it."
Joe Whittle, the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the Burton case, says he didn't know about the glaucoma until Burton's lawyer raised the issue in court. His office has "taken a lot of heat on this case and what happened to that poor guy," Whittle says. "But we did nothing improper."
"Congress passed these laws, and we have to follow them. If the American people wanted to exempt certain marijuana activity - these mom and pop or personal use or medical cases - they should speak through their duly elected officials and change the laws. Until those laws are changed, we must enforce them to the full extent of our resources."
The action was "an unequaled and outrageous example of government abuse," says Louisville lawyer Donald Heavrin, who failed to get the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
"To send a man trying to save his vision to prison, and steal the home and land that he and his wife had worked decades for, should have the authors of the Constitution spinning in their graves."