Reed Irvine - Editor
The popular CBS news magazine, "60 Minutes," aired a segment on January 11, 1981 titled "Sinsemilla." It was about illegal cultivation of marijuana on a large scale in Northern California. The program showed large patches full of a highly potent and very high priced variety of marijuana called "sinsemilla," the Spanish word for "seedless."
It was narrated by Harry Reasoner and produced by Paul Loewenwarter, the team that was responsible for the notorious hatchet job that provoked Illinois Power into producing its highly effective videotape, "60 Minutes: Our Reply." Harry Reasoner was shown visiting illegal marijuana "farms" escorted by growers wearing hats that hid their faces. Reasoner assured the viewers that these growers are nice fellows. They are not criminal types, he said. "They are golf players, little league coaches and good neighbors." One got the impression that they were going to all this trouble almost as a public service. Reasoner said: "Most growers we talked to insist that the crop gets to market through sales from friend to friend to friend."
However, the program was ambivalent on this point. Reasoner started off with the claim that marijuana is now California's largest cash crop--more valuable than oranges, grapefruit or grapes, and after mentioning the friend-to-friend distribution system, he said: "But there are also said to be some big city dope dealers who buy up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sinsemilla at a time. And there are said to be a few growers of a half- million dollars worth of sinsemilla or more. If so, we couldn't find them." Reasoner may have been unable to find the big dealers and growers, but he did show one operation that he himself said was obviously commercial. Law enforcement officers were shown on a raid cutting down and carting off a large marijuana crop. Nearby was a fairly large house. Every room was filled with drying marijuana plants. The officer-escorting Reasoner estimated that the value of the marijuana in one room alone was worth perhaps $50,000. The value of the marijuana in the house and the crop growing in the field must have come close to $500,000.
Reasoner observed that some of the officers who carried out this raid privately expressed "doubt whether marijuana is a public menace worth all this effort and expense." That was a doubt that 60 Minutes did nothing to dispel. Reasoner came out of a bookstore with an armful of books telling how to cultivate and use marijuana. That helped convey the impression that there is really nothing wrong with this activity. He pointed out that the marijuana crop was an important economic prop to the economy of the area. On his tour of one of the marijuana farms he showed his guide discussing in some detail the techniques of producing sinsemilla, a little "how-to" lesson that helped convey the impression that the developers of this extra high-potency plant were brilliant agronomists who were performing a social service.
The star of Reasoner's program was undoubtedly Joe Allen, a young district attorney in Mendocino County. Having shown that there was a problem--the problem of a lot of time and money being spent on what seemed to be a futile task of locating and destroying the marijuana patches, Reasoner put Allen on to give the answer. He said: "What I would advise is to legalize the smoking and possession and use of it (marijuana) in small quantities by those who choose to use it. And further, to legalize the growing of it in small quantities by those who choose to use it, as a way of taking them out of the commercial marijuana market. The easiest way to take this money away from the dope dealers is to make sure that the people have the right to grow their own." Allen's view was contrasted with that of Peter Bensinger, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, who was shown stating his intention to embark on a sharp increase in federal efforts to stamp out marijuana cultivation. Reasoner didn't ask Mr. Bensinger why he felt that it was desirable to continue the war on marijuana.
It was Joe Allen who was given the last word in the program and the opportunity to explain why some people, such as Peter Bensinger, are trying to destroy what Reasoner had described as California's largest agricultural crop. Reasoner, in summing up what had been learned as a result of the 60 Minutes investigation, brought Joe Allen on camera to make the point that CBS evidently wanted this program to make. Allen said: "I think that we have here a collision of values. I think we have an older generation that regards the use of marijuana as a sin and wants to spend their money and instruct the police to stamp it out at whatever cost. We have a younger generation who not only do not think it is a sin, but enjoy doing it, and are going to persist in doing it regardless of any reasonable effort that can be made on the part of law enforcement at any price the taxpayers are willing to pay."
The astonishing thing about this program was that not one word was said about the health hazards of marijuana. The only problems that were spotted was the possible involvement of commercial dope dealers in the distribution of the drug and the difficulties caused by theft of the illegal plants by unscrupulous parties.
This is doubly strange since 60 Minutes has shown considerable concern about health. It has devoted an entire segment to the great health danger of sugar- coated cereals. It has shown concern about diet pills. But as far as 60 Minutes is concerned, those who object to marijuana use do so because they think it is a "sin," not because they see it as a dangerous hazard to health. As far as we have been able to find out, 60 Minutes has never done a segment on the scientific findings concerning the effects of marijuana on health. Indeed, the last time 60 Minutes did anything on marijuana was in 1970. Science has learned a great deal about this drug since that time.
With some exceptions, the media have done a poor job of transmitting these findings to the public. In 1974, the Senate Internal Security Sub-committee held extensive hearings to ascertain what was then known about marijuana's effects. The findings were published in a 430-page volume, "Marijuana-Hashish Epidemic and its Impact on United States Security." The witnesses included eminent scientists from Canada, Jamaica, the U.K., Switzerland, Sweden and Egypt, as well as the United States. The media showed almost no interest in reporting on their testimony. Even then, the evidence showed clearly that the belief that marijuana was a harmless drug was a dangerous myth.
This has been forcefully underlined by more recent studies, and some elements of the media have performed a valuable service in bringing these findings to public attention. Two years ago, NBC aired an excellent documentary on the subject, "Reading, Writing and Reefers." Human Events and the Saturday Evening Post have published several articles on the subject, and major daily papers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post have run a few articles. Reader's Digest has published two excellent articles about the new findings, one in December 1979 and the other in November 1988. More than three million reprints of the first article have been ordered.
Much of the new evidence was presented at an international symposium on marijuana held in France in July 1978. Forty-one scientists from 14 nations presented papers showing the disastrous effects of marijuana on the brain, lungs and reproductive organs. Additional evidence was presented at a hearing conducted by the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control in July 1979. It is hard to see how 60 Minutes could have missed all this, but apparently they did.
These studies have shown that THC (the principle psychoactive ingredient in marijuana) accumulates in the fatty tissue of the body, including the brain, ovaries and testes. According to these studies, it takes as long as five to eight days for just half the THC of one marijuana cigarette [or joint] to leave the body. Twenty percent of the THC is still in the body tissues a month later. This means that someone smoking one joint a day would be continually adding to the amounts in the body, accentuating the harmful health effects. One study from Tulane University reported, "persistent--perhaps irreversible-alterations developed in the brain function" of rhesus monkeys, which have brain patterns similar to humans. One electroencephalographic test of over fifty pot-smoking teenagers found all EEGs "markedly immature for their age," with symptoms "sufficient to be diagnostic of diffuse brain impairment."
The effects on the lungs of marijuana smokers are at least as bad. Researchers at UCLA found that the respiratory impairment from smoking 3 to 5 joints a week to be the equivalent of 112 tobacco cigarettes. Dr. Forrest Tennant, who directed the Army's drug program in Europe, reported: "Even though a person can get bronchitis and emphysema from cigarette smoking, one must usually wait 20 to 30 years. We became alarmed because we began seeing these conditions in 18-, 19- and 20-year old men." Cancer researchers in Switzerland discovered that pot smoke contributed to cancerous and pre- cancerous lesions on lung tissue much more than tobacco smoke did.
Marijuana use has also been shown to be harmful to the reproductive organs, since both the ovaries and testes contain high amounts of fatty tissue. One study found a 44% reduction in the production of the principal male hormone. The same researchers found that pot affects the production of female hormones as well. One study performed at the University of California at Davis with rhesus monkeys, whose reproductive system is similar to that of human females, found that 44% of all conceptions by the female monkeys exposed to THC resulted in spontaneous abortion, fetal death, stillbirth, or death of infant shortly after birth. They also found that the effect was dose-related, meaning that if enough THC is administered. 100 percent of all fetuses will die. In the words of Dr. Gabriel Nahas of Columbia University. "Today's pot smoker may not only be damaging his own mind and body, but may be playing genetic roulette and casting a shadow across children and grandchildren yet unborn."
Other findings have shown that marijuana speeds up the heart, posing problems for those with heart ailments; seriously impairs the efficiency of certain white cells, which protect us from disease; that THC can cross the placental barrier and affect the unborn child: and that pot has profound psychological effects. More re- search continues to be done, but what evidence is in demonstrated the serious health hazards of smoking marijuana.
At the same time that the evidence against marijuana has been building up, the use of marijuana has continued to climb. According to the latest figures (1979), over ten percent of all high school seniors use marijuana daily, an 80% increase since 1975. Sixty percent of 1979 seniors had tried the drug at least once; and of those students, about half had tried marijuana in their ninth-grade year. There is also mounting evidence that the number of elementary and junior high school students using pot has steadily risen. Rep. Lester Wolff, the chairman of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, has said: "The United States is the most pervasive drug-abusing nation in history. And our most pervasive illegal drug of abuse is marijuana."
The general public attitude has been that marijuana is no more harmful than tobacco or alcohol, yet the evidence contradicts that attitude. Certainly the media bear part of the blame for keeping the public uninformed about marijuana. CBS had an excellent opportunity to correct that on its 60 Minutes segment. Instead, their thrust was a pitch for legalization, which would encourage even wider use of this dangerous drug.
The vital role that Castro's Cuba played in the over- throw of the Somoza government in Nicaragua has been acknowledged not only by Castro, but even by NBC News. NBC aired a documentary last fall called "The Castro Connection," which spelled out the facts about Castro's role in Nicaragua. The only trouble was that NBC was over a year late. If the American people had been given that information before Somoza fell, they might have demanded an end to the policy of withholding American aid in time to prevent the communist takeover. The July II 1979 AIM Report called attention to the strange reluctance of most of the media to tell the public the truth about the Sandinistas even when they had available to them a leaked secret ClA report that spelled out the Castro role. The Chicago Tribune was the one major exception. It blazoned the story across page one. The Washington Post was at the opposite pole, refusing to tell its readers what the CIA memo said about Nicaragua.
That CIA memo also discussed Castro's designs on El Salvador and reported that 50 members of the Salvadoran Popular Liberation Forces, one of the terrorist factions, had been receiving military and ideological training in Cuba. It reported that Cuba also maintained contact with other terrorist factions and was pushing for them to cooperate. Castro had performed the same role in Nicaragua in getting three different Sandinista factions to work closely together. He had similar success in El Salvador. The various terrorists' factions there are now united in the Farabundo Marti national Liberation Front. Their "political" arm is the Revolutionary Democratic Front.
We again see the same reluctance on the part of our major media to report on the international communist connections of these terrorists. AIM first noted this fact last fall when there was a virtual blackout of testimony given by Rep. Bill Young of Florida on Nicaraguan support of the Salvadoran terrorists. Young testified before a Congressional subcommittee in opposition to the $75 million aid package that President Carter pushed through for Nicaragua. On September 12, 1980, President Carter officially certified to Congress "the Government of Nicaragua has not cooperated with or harbors any international terrorist organization or is aiding, abetting, or supporting acts of violence or terrorism in other countries." That statement had to be made if the $75 million in loans to Nicaragua was to be released.
In his testimony, Rep. Young said that he had seen secret intelligence reports on Nicaraguan support of terrorist activities as a member of the House Intelligence Committee. He said: "No reasonable man, after examining that evidence, could reach the same conclusion" as President Carter had reached. Young pointed out that a defector from the Salvadoran terrorist movement, Julian Otero Espinosa. Had told of shipments of arms from Nicaragua into El Salvador. He said: "On several occasions, we received arms coming directly from the Soviet Union and Cuba." Otero also said that Salvadoran terrorists were being trained in Nicaragua.
Young's testimony and Otero's confessions got little attention from our media, but on January 9,1981, United Press International put a story on the wire saying, "U.S. sources said the 4,000 to 6,000 Salvadoran guerrillas have been receiving money and high-quality, sophisticated weapons since early last year from such diverse sources as Libya, Vietnam, Cuba and Nicaragua." The story added: "The weapons are said to include American arms left behind in Vietnam, funneled to El Salvador primarily through Nicaragua and Cuba, and probably also via Libya and Iraq. Members of the PLO are training guerrillas in Nicaragua, sources said." Intelligence sources told AIM that some of the American weapons in the hands of the Salvadoran terrorists have been traced by serial numbers to Nicaragua.
The Washington Post gave this story only very brief mention toward the end of story about El Salvador on the inside pages. The New York Times ignored the story for five days, finally reporting in a page-3 story on January 14 that the Salvadoran terrorists had "large quantities of Soviet-made weapons, among them rocket- launched grenades, bazookas and recoilless rifles." The story did not explain the route by which these weapons had reached El Salvador. Nor did it discuss the PLO training of Salvadoran guerrillas in Nicaragua.
Castro was careful not to put his own troops into the fighting in Nicaragua, according to the secret ClA memo published by the Chicago Tribune, but there is evidence that he is playing a bolder role in El Salvador. Robert Moss, co-author of the best-selling novel about Soviet manipulation of Western media, The Spike. has reported in the London Daily Telegraph that Cubans are engaged in the fighting in El Salvador. Moss says that intelligence sources report that Cuba has 200 advisers in El Salvador aiding the terrorists. He says that six Cubans have been killed in the fighting and that their bodies were flown by helicopter to Nicaragua. Moss quoted a defector from the Front for Popular Liberation, Luis Quintanilla Romero, as saying that Cubans were serving in the guerrilla bands and that there was a large- scale supply of arms from Panama and Mexico. Moss asserts that the Cubans wanted to hit the Salvadoran government hard before Ronald Reagan took office, believing that Reagan would take stronger measures to support the anti-communist junta. Moss observed that the charges of direct Cuban involvement had been "curiously neglected" by the media.
In the waning days of the Carter Administration the Salvadoran guerrillas tried to mount what was described as their "final offensive." This alarmed the Carterites sufficiently that they moved to restore military aid to El Salvador, aid that had been cut off after the discovery of the bodies on the three nuns and a Catholic lay worker in El Salvador on December 4, 1980. (In our article on these murders in the last AIM Report we made a silly slip saying that the grave was found in Nicaragua. It was clear from the context that we meant to say El Salvador. We regret that the editor and the proofreader didn't catch the slip of the typewriter).
Ambassador Robert White, after seeing intelligence reports of international communist support for the terrorists, expressed his support for resumption of aid. Saying that the left had "upped the ante" in El Salvador. Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte commented: "Communist countries are intervening directly to sup- port the guerrillas. We are collaborating to save the Americas from this geopolitical invasion of Marxism- Leninism." Duarte, a Christian Democrat and a civilian. was named president in a governmental reorganization promoted by the U.S. after the murder of the Catholic women.
This was demonstrated in the treatment of a massacre of civilians in a provincial El Salvadoran town that just happened to be witnessed by a producer for CBS News. He reported seeing a dozen leftist terrorists open fire on a crowd of civilians, killing 20 of them. The New York Times mentioned this in the 13th paragraph of a 15- paragraph story. The Washington Post mentioned it in the 19th paragraph of a 23-paragraph story. It is a safe bet that these two great newspapers would have considerably more prominently displayed an eyewitness account by an American news- man of a massacre of 20 civilians by the government security forces.
The same tendency was observed in the press treatment of the recent attempted assassinations of three foreign journalists in El Salvador, two Americans and a South African. Ian Mates, the South African. Was fatally wounded, and John Hoagland, a photographer for News- week, and Susan Meiselas. a photographer for Time, were slightly wounded when a land mine exploded underneath the car in which they were riding. The incident was widely publicized by the media, but reports about who was responsible for the deed were buried. This was strange, because the media have been quick to report charges that murders were carried out by "rightists" in the case of the four Catholic women and the two American land reform advisers, even though this was sheer speculation.
The Washington Post did not get around to discussing who was responsible for the attack on the three journalists until January 14, two days after it happened. The question of responsibility was brought up in the 16th paragraph of a 17-paragraph story on page 18, which revealed that the mine was "apparently" laid by leftists. This was apparently based on a statement made by one of the victims that peasants in the area had said that the mine had been intended for the National Guard. The mine had been detonated by remote control by persons who could see the car passing over the spot where it was buried. The car was clearly marked "International Press." This suggests that it was a deliberate attack on the three foreign journalists.
Had the government security forces perpetrated this assault, we would probably have seen a repetition of the journalistic firestorm created when a Nicaraguan National Guardsman shot ABC correspondent Bill Stewart during the Nicaraguan civil war. Since the left did the deed, our journalists seem quite willing to bury and forget even a lethal attack on three of their own colleagues.
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60 Minutes owes the public a good report on the health hazards of marijuana. Urge them to do this. Write to William Leonard, President, CBS News, 524 West 57th Street, New York, N.Y. 10019. If convenient, send a copy of your letter to William S. Paley, Chairman, CBS, Inc., 51 West 52nd St., New York, N.Y. 10019.
AIM Report NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S CUFF
OUR MAJOR MEDIA CONTINUE TO DISPLAY AN AMAZING LACK OF CONCERN OVER THE THREAT of the spread of communist dictatorships throughout Central America. We point out in our second story in this issue the very slight attention that the Washington Post and New York Times have given to the growing flood of evidence of Nicaraguan and Cuban involvement in the effort to overthrow the government of El Salvador. Since that article was set in type, additional evidence has come to hand. On January 17, 1981, the banner front page headline in Diario Las Americas, a Spanish-language paper published in Miami, read: "U.S. Denounces Nicaraguan Aid to the Salvadoran Guerrillas." The sub-head read: "Ambassador Robert White Affirms that the U.S. Will Not Permit the Establishment of a Marxist-Leninist Dictatorship; State Department Considering Suspension of All Aid to Nicaragua Because of the Evidence of Intervention."
THE STORY ABOUT THE POSSIBLE SUSPENSION OF U.S. AID TO NICARAGUA WAS A UPI WIRE story out of Washington by diplomatic correspondent Jim Anderson. Anderson wrote: "The Department of State said that it is considering the suspension of all economic aid to Nicaragua because of clear evidence that that country is assisting the leftist guerrilla offensive against the government of El Salvador." Anderson noted that President Carter had certified on September 12 that Nicaragua was not aiding international terrorism, but he reported that Ambassador Robert White, our envoy to El Salvador, had told reporters that clear and convincing evidence had been found that Nicaragua was involved in the training and provisioning of the guerrillas in E1 Salvador. He added that our Ambassador to Nicaragua, Lawrence Pezzullo, had informed the Nicaraguan government of our concern over this evidence and that we were awaiting the Nicaraguan reply. The UPI story said U.S. officials had said there was abundant evidence from documents and confiscated weapons that the leftist guerrillas were receiving "important quantities of arms of Soviet and Chinese manufacture, very probably through Nicaragua and Cuba." It said this gave rise to the fear that the El Salvador civil war would be converted into a regional conflict extending to the neighboring countries, possibly with the open aid of the communist world channeled through Cuba and Nicaragua. The UPI also reported that seven U.S. military advisers were being sent to El Salvador and that one source said that it would not be surprising if the U.S. were to take a more active role in El Salvador in the future.
FOR SOME STRANGE REASON ALL OF THIS DID NOT STRIKE THE EDITORS OF SEVERAL OF our leading daily newspapers as newsworthy. Here is a summary of the news about El Salvador that we found reported in five major dailies on January 17.
1. About 40 American residents of Nicaragua, including nine members of the Maryknoll order, occupied part of the American embassy in Managua to protest the resumption of military aid to El Salvador. (Reported by the Washington Post on page one, by the New York Times on page 3, and by the Baltimore Sun on page 4. Not reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer or the Washington Star).
2. The Salvadoran ambassador to Nicaragua and his staff resigned, saying they would join anti-government forces in their country. (Reported by the Washington Post on page one, by the New York Times on page 3, and by the Baltimore Sun on page 4. Not reported by the Inquirer or the Star).
3. El Salvadoran authorities report relative calm after six days of fierce fighting, and commercial life in the capital and surrounding districts seemed normal. (Reported by the NYT on p. 4 and by the Washington Post on page 22. Not reported by the Star, Sun, or Inquirer).
4. Guatemala and Honduras rush troops to their borders in response to the "broad leftist offensive in El Salvador. (Reported by the Washington Post on page one. No other papers carried this story).
5. Salvadoran government said the leftist offensive had "concluded" and that guerrilla activity was reduced to harassment, but sources that asked not to be identified said guerrillas were still very active in areas bordering Honduras and were trying to destroy communications between main cities. (Reported in Washington Star on page 12, Baltimore Sun on page 4, but not in any of the other papers).
6. Casualties from 7 days of fighting topped 700, most of them guerrillas, with at least 50 government troops among the dead. El Salvador Human Rights Commission said 13,194 people were killed in 1980, including some 350 officers and soldiers. (Reported in Washington Star on page 12, but not in any other papers).
7. Rebel radio broadcast said the offensive was continuing and that guerrilla forces had executed some military captives accused of mass murder. (Sun on page 4; no others).
8. Salvadoran opposition charges Guatemalan and Honduran troops are poised to invade El Salvador and "fight on the side of the U. S.-backed junta," but these countries say they are only protecting their borders. (Washington Post only, on page 22).
9. Guatemala's four leftist guerrilla organizations stepped up activity, saying they were fighting "in solidarity with the Salvadoran offensive," and it was reliably reported that this was to keep Guatemala's forces busy at home so they couldn't go to aid of El Salvador. (Washington Post only, page 22).
10.Guatemala's guerrilla forces gaining in size and popular support; claimed responsibility for killing prominent congressman and mayor of a town, and claimed to have ambushed army convoys, killing unspecified number of soldiers. (Post only, page 22).
11. Honduran president opposed any Honduran army involvement in El Salvador, but he was overruled by Army high command, and 2400 troops sent to border. (Post only, p. 22).
12. Venezuelan government support of El Salvador junta is being increasingly criticized in Venezuela. Include charges that Venezuelan security officials are collaborating with CIA in establishing espionage network in El Salvador. Venezuela is seen as only "strong regional ally backing Salvadoran government." (Post only, p. 27)
13. Venezuelan ex-foreign minister Aristides Calvani says establishment of Marxist regime in E1 Salvador will bring profound imbalance in the area. Calvani working closely with U.S. officials and has made several trips to El Salvador. Denies that trips were to give advice to security forces. (Post only, p. 27).
ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, THE NEW YORK TIMES SUMMED UP THE WEEK'S NEWS ABOUT EL SALVADOR. It said in the 3rd paragraph of a 5-paragraph story that Amb. White had said the guerrillas were "getting sophisticated weapons--from Nicaragua, he thought." The next paragraph said: "Salvadoran opposition leaders, including non-Marxists, denied the guerrillas were receiving weapons from Nicaragua or Cuba."
INADVERTENTLY THE DETAILS OF AIM PRESIDENT MURRAY BARON'S SPEAKING SCHEDULE WERE omitted from my "Notes" in the last issue. Mr. Baron was in Salem, Oregon on January 15 and 16, where he addressed the Rotary Club, a Military Order of the World Wars luncheon, and the quarterly dinner meeting of the Reserve Officers Association. The entire Oregon State Supreme Court attended the Rotary Club luncheon. The reception was excellent.