>From: "Peter McWilliams" >Subject: I am in shock >Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2000 21:33:01 -0800 >X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 >X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 > >I am shocked to just discover that the man who wrote the excellent piece I >circulated last September is dead. (The piece is below.) There is a lot of >information here. It's a long read. But one thing is certain: Rafael >Tammariello was a causality of the War on Drugs. > >Read it and weep. > >In mourning (again) > >Peter > > >---------------------------------------- > > > >Rafael Tammariello > > >Pubdate: Jan/Feb 2000 >Source: American Journalism Review >Copyright: 2000 American Journalism Review >Contact: editor@ajr.org >Website: http://ajr.newslink.org/ajrtoc.html >Author: Mark Lisheron > >The fatal drug overdose and the suicide of two respected staffer's stunned >the Las Vegas Review-Journal's newsroom. The way the paper covered the >tragedies raised serious questions. > >ON AUGUST 22, 18 DAYS before he died, Rafael Tammariello published his last >column decrying the war on drugs. > >One of several libertarian voices on the decidedly conservative editorial >page of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Tammariello had written before about >what he called the "failed war on stupidity." In May he had urged Oscar >Goodman, who was about to be elected mayor of Las Vegas, to summon the >courage to call for legalizing drugs. > >In his final anti-drug-war column, Tammariello outdid himself. He compared >the drug war to the Holocaust, its warriors to Nazis. "Drug users," >Tammariello wrote, "are the Jews of 20th century America - hounded, >persecuted, shipped off to prisons and labor camps by the hundreds of >thousands. Like Hitler's anti-Jewish laws, our Drug War compels people into >depravity and criminality - and then we persecute them on the grounds of >their depraved criminality." > >He called for a return to the sensibility of the 19th century, where opium >dens were centrally located, heroin could be ordered through the mail and >narcotics were purchased legally by the famous and the obscure. Drugs, he >concluded, were a mere "eccentricity," "causing a 'problem' no more serious >than skipping church." > >Readers of the Review-Journal were to soon learn Tammariello was a man who >lived what he professed. On the night of September 9, Tammariello's wife >Joan, the training/systems editor for the Review-Journal newsroom, found >her husband on the floor of their bathroom. Blood stained the crook of his >left arm and the tip of a syringe that Las Vegas police investigators found >in a wooden box on the bathroom counter near his body. The residue in the >syringe was heroin. > >Just hours after he had declined to write his close friend's obituary, >Kenneth James Evans, a feature writer at the paper, shot himself in the >head with a .38-caliber revolver. Evans' wife told police her husband "was >extremely despondent over losing his friend and coworker, Rafael >Tammariello," according to the police report. The report did not disclose >the contents of a one-page note, written by Evans and found near his body. > >Rarely has a newsroom suffered so much loss so publicly. Jane Ann Morrison, >a veteran political reporter for the Review-Journal who took over the >somber duty from Evans, says she sobbed through the reporting and the >writing of Tammariello's obituary. Police reporter Glenn Puit, who >assembled Evans' obit, says he seriously considered getting out of the >business after writing a follow-up story detailing Tammariello's >drug-related death. The paper's best-known columnists, John L. Smith and >Jon Ralston, offered up written tributes to their colleagues before >attending back-to-back funerals. Publisher Sherman Frederick hired a grief >counselor, who conducted group and private sessions and remains to this day >on retainer for the paper's 117 editorial employees. > >For an excruciating week, the staff of the 158,541-circulation >Review-Journal struggled through its anguish while continuing to produce >stories for a city inured to excess. While city boosters are yoked, for >better or worse, to the lurid image, many of the journalists on the R-J >staff detest the Las Vegas stereotype that would have trivialized the >deaths of their friends, Managing Editor Charles Zobell says. The >leadership of the Donrey Media Group-owned newspaper decided early it would >not let that happen, acquitting itself professionally, maybe even >courageously, under the circumstances, Zobell says. > >"I don't know that we would have handled it any differently than we did >it," Zobell reflected two months later in a coffee shop booth at the Palace >Station Hotel and Casino. > >But the question, say observers and critics - the people Zobell has come to >refer to as "our enemies" - is whether the paper should have handled it >differently. The Review-Journal has taken fire for waiting nearly a week to >report that Tammariello's death was drug-related, doing so only after a >local television station broke the news. Some staffers are disappointed >that, months after the traumatic deaths of two top writers, the paper had >yet to do a major piece putting the tragedies in context. A former R-J >reporter-turned-investigator complains that a proponent of drug >legalization who died using heroin was lionized in a manner befitting a >national hero. > >"I've thought it over a hundred times and, given the dynamic of the >situation, I don't know that I would have done anything differently," Puit >said over lunch at a Caribbean restaurant in Las Vegas. "I don't think a >single reader thought we should have handled these stories any differently. >I believe deep down in my heart that we intended all along to cover these >stories as news. But I think we became so distracted putting these people >to rest that getting a newspaper out became secondary." > >Crucial from the very start was an overarching desire to protect Joan >Tammariello from any further hurt, Zobell says. Mary Hausch - a former >managing editor of the Review-Journal, an assistant journalism professor at >the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a friend of Zobell's and others in >the newsroom - says she believes this noble but misplaced desire >compromised the coverage and the newspaper. > >"Perhaps there is this loyalty to Joan, but you have to be willing to cover >yourself like you would cover anybody else," Hausch says. "You have to be >willing to ask yourself, 'Had any other public person died of a drug >overdose, would you cover it in the same way?' I don't think the R-J can >say they'd do it the same way." Regardless, the deaths in Vegas and their >aftermath shine a spotlight on the challenges of covering a story >all-too-close to home while coping with the overwhelming grief of a >newsroom in mourning. > >RAFAEL TAMMARIELLPO HAD A devoted following for his acerbic and incisive >columns on the front of the R-J's Sunday Focus section. Those who agreed >with nothing Tammariello wrote admired him for his clear, consistent >thinking and prose. The announcement of his death brought accolades from >local and state elected officials, who lauded his erudition and civility. > >"Nobody called and asked me to say nice things," says former Nevada Gov. >Bob Miller (D), now an attorney in Las Vegas. "It wasn't that I agreed with >what he wrote. In fact, I almost never agreed with Rafe. It was that he was >sincere in what he wrote." In the column that led the Focus page the Sunday >after the columnist died, the paper's editor and Tammariello's friend, >Thomas Mitchell, wrote, "the collective intellectual candlepower of the >city of Las Vegas dimmed" the night the 48-year-old columnist died. > >Zobell described Tammariello as intellectual, introverted and respectful of >the political opinions of others. Tammariello was generally well-liked >throughout the newsroom, social but preferring to keep the company of a >small group of close friends, he says. > >Evans, 46, was less broadly known in the community and in the newsroom than >Tammariello. Evans had once worked for the Nevadan, the now-defunct >Review-Journal Sunday magazine, but he had left in 1992 to manage media >relations for the Nevada Commission on Tourism. He returned early in 1998 >to work with Special Projects Editor A.D. Hopkins on a three-section, >196-page project profiling 100 people central to the development of Las >Vegas and southern Nevada. > >The first section ran February 7, the second May 2 and the final >installment on September 12, two days after Evans' suicide. The series, >expected to be published as a book called "The First 100: Portraits of the >Men and Women Who Shaped Las Vegas," played to Evans' gift for native >Nevadan storytelling. > >"K.J. was a gifted feature writer whose sense of humanity was matched only >by his sense of humor," wrote columnist Smith. "Oh, how that man loved to >laugh." > >Evans was particularly valuable to the Review-Journal because he had served >his apprenticeship at little Nevada newspapers in towns like Tonopah, >Lovelock and Elko. He knew the Nevada the tourists who couldn't see past >the lights on the Strip never see, Zobell says. > >"Those were the stories he could tell," he continues. "He had a superb >knowledge of Nevada. He appreciated the color of the state, and he could >convey that in his stories. It's hard to find another like K.J. Evans." > >To the small circle at the newspaper who had any contact with him, Evans >seemed delighted to be able to harness what he did best for a project like >"The First 100," Zobell says. That is what Evans allowed people at work to >see. Because he worked from home and researched zealously at the University >of Nevada, Las Vegas, most of the staff knew little about him. > >"Rafe's the one they knew," Zobell says. "That's part of the sadness, that >people didn't know [Evans] better. He was so cheerful, so enthusiastic. It >caught me off guard that there was so much pain in his life." > >No one interviewed for this story admitted to knowing of the pain behind >the laughter. Hopkins and Mitchell declined to be interviewed. Mitchell, >who was close to both Evans and Tammariello, prohibited AJR from coming >into the Review-Journal newsroom. City Editor Annette Caramia, Joan >Tammariello's close friend, says, "I don't want to talk about my personal >grief for some newspaper publication." > >Joan Tammariello was also not ready. "It's too close to my husband's death >for me to want to comment. I hope you can understand," she says. "I am >trying to work here. You can understand how hard that might be, and it >doesn't seem to be getting any easier." > >ON THE NIGHT OF THURSDAY, September 9, Joan Tammariello made a 911 call >around 7 p.m. and followed it with a call to Caramia. The Clark County >coroner pronounced the columnist dead at 9:40 p.m. From the descriptions in >the police report, it was clear Joan Tammariello made no attempt to hide >the evidence of what the coroner would later conclude was a death by >accidental "opiate intoxication." > >The police report noted finding a spoon with residue in it near the wooden >box where the bloodied syringe was found. Also near the box was a black >substance on wax paper. Inside the box was a baggie containing "a green >leafy substance" and two prescriptions for Valium, one for Tammariello and >one for his wife. A Dr. Ramirez in Mexico prescribed the Valium for the >Tammariellos, according to the report. > >The report also noted that, in 1995, Tammariello had pleaded guilty to a >misdemeanor charge of attempted possession of dangerous drugs after an >arrest for possession of dangerous drugs and a forged prescription, both >felonies. When asked by police whether she knew about her husband's drug >use, Joan Tammariello said Rafael used to smoke opium, but she had not seen >him do it recently. Rafael had been drinking heavily, she said, and had >been depressed for about 18 months following the suicide of his daughter. > >The Review-Journal deadline would have given the paper around two hours to >report on Tammariello's death. Caramia, who had come to the Tammariello >home, would have had to inform or have another editor inform a police >reporter, who normally would not have asked about what appeared to be an >accidental drug overdose or a suicide. > >Caramia told at least one other editor about the columnist's death that >night, but says "I recused myself from making decisions on this, because I >was just too immersed in other things at the time. I certainly wouldn't >second-guess what they decided to do on this." > >What the newspaper did the first night was nothing. In the morning, >according to several reporters who were in the newsroom, word of >Tammariello's death began to circulate. Because of his age, rumors spread >that he had died of a heart attack. The rumor became part of the first >printed report on the death. Ed Koch of the Las Vegas Sun, the afternoon >paper and the Review-Journal's partner in a joint operating agreement, >reported in a short story that Tammariello had died of "an apparent heart >attack." While Koch's story said the Clark County coroner confirmed the >time of death, the coroner did not confirm the speculation in Koch's lead. > >Review-Journal Editor Thomas Mitchell told readers in a September 26 column >that he called Evans the morning after Tammariello's death to tell him the >columnist had died. He asked Evans to accept the honor of writing his >friend's obituary. "I reasoned he had the time, the ability and the >sensitivity to do justice to such a difficult and personally daunting >task," Mitchell wrote. > >"I was wrong. So damnably very wrong. > >"K.J. broke down crying on the phone and said he could not handle the >assignment. He had been too close to Rafe. I was unaware of other problems >he was battling." > >Mitchell turned to Morrison, who in 19 years with the Review-Journal had >become a specialist in writing the obituaries of well-known political >figures. As she worked through the day, Morrison did not learn the cause of >death - but she did hear that the police report included mention of drug >paraphernalia found near Tammariello's body. > >Rather than track down the police report or pursue the drug angle, Morrison >focused instead on collecting comment from Mitchell, Publisher Frederick >and several of the state's top political figures. > >Inside the newsroom a kind of catatonia set in, with people wandering by >Morrison's desk to say how sorry they were that she had drawn the >heartbreaking assignment. > >"I do a good job with obituaries. I give you a good send-off. But I wasn't >thrilled to get this one. I cried throughout the day," Morrison says. "In >hindsight, I do wish I had put a simple sentence in saying that drug >paraphernalia was found, but I was getting that information thirdhand. Am I >beating myself up for not calling Joanie, who had the firsthand knowledge? >Absolutely not. But I was probably not as aggressive as I should have been." > >Before Morrison's obit had been put to bed that night, Evans also had died. >The coroner pronounced him dead at 9:10 p.m. Friday, September 10, an >apparent suicide. The Evans police report revealed Tammariello and Evans >had shared not only friendship but depression and drug use. Evans' wife, >Kathy Reardon, told police that Tammariello and Evans had on several >occasions crossed into Mexico from San Diego to buy Valium. Police found a >half-filled bottle of Depakote, an anti-depressant prescribed to Evans, and >two empty Valium containers in the trash at his house. > >But because the Tammariello and Evans police reports had not yet been read >by Review-Journal reporters, readers, as well as most of the staff of the >paper, had no idea just how tightly intertwined were their deaths. While >Puit assembled a news obituary for Evans similar in tone to Morrison's for >Tammariello, Mitchell was putting together a tribute that filled the R-J >Focus section on Sunday, September 12. > >Mitchell compared Tammariello's place in Las Vegas to H.L. Mencken's in >Baltimore and Mike Royko's in Chicago, calling him "the scribe of its >gamboling gospel and the champion of its contrariness." Columnist Ralston >echoed what many on the staff thought of Tammariello: While they seldom >agreed with him, they respected and liked him. > >On the front of the Nevada section that Sunday was a column in which Smith >admitted to readers that he was "awed by the irascible brilliance of Rafael >Tammariello's intellect for nearly 15 years." Above Smith's column was >Puit's obituary, disclosing Evans' suicide. > >BUT THE REVIEW-JOURNAL had not yet reported the cause of Tammariello's >death, a fact that caught the attention of Glen Meek, an investigative >reporter with KTNV-TV (Channel 13) in Las Vegas. He began to suspect that >Tammariello had died from something other than a heart attack. Still, Meek >says he had higher priorities early in the week. > >"On Wednesday I had run out of excuses, and I called the cops to ask for >the report," Meek says. "They said, 'That's funny, you're the first person >to ask for this.' " > >On Wednesday night, September 15, Meek led his report with the irony that a >columnist who had battled for drug legalization had died of a drug >overdose. Meek's story hewed to the facts disclosed in the police report. >They were the same facts Puit got when he picked up the Tammariello report >that same day. In fact, Meek and Puit, who had been friendly, passed each >other in the hallway at the police department. Each reporter knew why the >other was there. > >After seeing Meek's report, Puit was furious. "It made me sick to my >stomach," Puit says. "The way he did it, using Rafe's column, was all >self-promotion. I usually respect what Glen Meek does. He's a good >reporter. But this went too far." > >After replaying the tape of his report two months later, Meek defended the >reporting. The connection between Tammariello's columns and his manner of >death was more important to the story than his place as a public figure in >Las Vegas, he says. Never once did Meek consider using some of the more >notorious television tabloid methods, he insists. > >"There were no shots of me standing over the corpse, no shots of me getting >thrown out of the R-J trying to get comment. I wasn't doing Sam Donaldson," >he says. "If I had wanted to, I could have gone over to the victim's house >and gotten shots of me knocking on the door." > >At least as galling for Puit--whose story ran the following day - was the >impression that a TV station goaded the Review-Journal into giving up >unpleasant details about one of its own. The newspaper had earlier decided >to wait until the coroner's office completed its toxicology report on >Tammariello. The toxicology testing alone is a warning to a reporter, but a >check of the police report would have provided a clear indication of what >toxicology was looking for. > >"It was a simple, stupid mistake," Puit says. "The most basic thing you can >do is get the police report, but we had no idea [of] the cause of Rafe's >death. You always expect tox to take weeks to confirm anything. > >"We hardly ever get beat on a story, but we got beat on this one. You know, >this sounds funny, but this might not be the worst story to get beat on. >... I don't think a lot of people in the newsroom care whether we got beat >on that story or not." > >As for what he did report, Puit says, "Maybe this is going to sound >self-serving, but I think I was the only one who had the guts to do the >[Tammariello drug death story] after everything that had already happened. >People were legitimately worried other people in the newsroom were going to >blow their brains out. The newspaper business is already a depressing >business. I had to take a day off after I wrote the [Tammariello story]. It >put me in a two-week depression." > >REVIEW-JOURNAL STAFFERS might not have cared that they had been beaten on >the story, but some Las Vegas journalists outside the newsroom did. > >In a four-paragraph brief September 16 for Media Watch, a regular feature >in the weekly alternative newspaper CityLife, Managing Editor Geoff >Schumacher reported Tammariello had died of a suspected heart attack and >Evans of a self-inflicted gunshot. The following week, Media Watch reported >the details Meek and Puit had reported. And a week after that, Schumacher >ran a commentary by Al Tobin, an investigator in the Federal Public >Defender's Office in Las Vegas and a much-respected former Review-Journal >reporter. > >Tobin excoriated Tammariello for "profound intellectual and journalistic >dishonesty," for writing about legalizing drugs without admitting he was a >user. He was the writer of the kind of editorials "that left you wondering >if they were written by a right-wing Libertarian on smack," he wrote. After >apologizing for any feelings he might have hurt, Tobin concluded the column >hoping Tammariello was "someplace where your soul is being bathed in God's >warm, loving light, and the smell of death and drugs no longer surrounds >you." > >Tobin apologizes for neither the tone nor the message. As far he is >concerned, Tammariello and the Review-Journal had it coming after a Sunday, >September 26, column written by Mitchell with the headline "Reporting >honestly in the face of grief." > >"Were they guilty of covering up anything? No, I don't think that at all," >Tobin says. "They were guilty of overkill. What frustrated me was the >pedestal they put him on. I understand he's one of your own. A little >tribute is all right. But three columns and all the politicians saying >these glowing things. I don't think Mother Teresa got that much ink when >she died." > >Miller, who served as governor of Nevada for 10 years, says he believed the >Review-Journal accorded Tammariello a tribute commensurate with his >importance to its readers. And although he didn't know about the heroin >overdose at the time, Miller's eulogy for Tammariello would not have >changed had he known beforehand, he says. > >"As bizarre as it sounds, I think the way he died probably establishes his >sincerity," Miller says. "He lived what he believed. I think it makes him >the opposite of a phony. It also makes me more fortified in my opposition >to what Rafe espoused." > >In his September 26 column, Mitchell acted as a kind of compassionate >ombudsman, walking readers through the decisions he made in covering the >deaths. He challenged the external and internal whispers that the paper >withheld the police reports. And he attempted to sweep away the contention >of Tobin and Meeks that Tammariello compromised his libertarian views by >the way he died. He did not, however, explain to readers why the newspaper >took six days to pick up a police report that would have confirmed what >several people in the newsroom knew from the day Tammariello died. > >"There is no rulebook for how to commit journalism," Mitchell told readers. >"It is truly the first and last bastion of situational management. All >things are relative. No decision is completely right or utterly wrong. One >can defend or condemn either side of an argument as to what to report and >when." > >The decisions were made, he wrote, about friends and co-workers "who died >too young and incomprehensibly. > >"This double shock enveloped the newsroom in suffocating numbness. There >were the usual feelings of grief, disbelief, blame, self-blame, guilt, >self-doubt, and, yes, anger. The devastation was compounded by the fact >that Rafael's wife, Joan, is a longtime Review-Journal employee." > >Publisher Frederick came to Joan Tammariello as a friend on the night her >husband died. The decisions Frederick made in the aftermath were made to >protect and comfort Joan and the rest of the staff, he says. He says he is >incensed that the newspaper was portrayed as negligent in its coverage and >wounded that critics failed to consider the circumstances. > >The newspaper's critics "missed the story," Frederick says. "It's a story >about a newsroom that got knocked on its ass and is still trying to recover >from it." To assist in the recovery, Frederick moved quickly to bring into >the newsroom Steven C. Kalas, an Episcopal priest and grief specialist. >Kalas met with editors and managers on the Monday after the deaths and told >them to look out for absenteeism, missed deadlines, short tempers and a >general malaise that is the first sign of clinical hysteria. > >The first group session drew about 10 people, Kalas says. While protecting >the confidentiality of individuals, Kalas says group members had difficulty >reconciling the professional images of Tammariello and Evans with the >manner of their deaths. He assured the group that both men had demons and >that there was no shame in being unable to reverse the fatal decisions they >made. > >Private, individual sessions with employees followed. In all, about 15 >percent of the staff met with him, no better or worse than in the >corporations and the schools he has visited in the wake of other tragedies. >Internally, the newspaper is doing about as well as can be expected, Kalas >says. Some dealt with the shock of having learned of the deaths by reading >it in the paper. > >Kalas says the paper moved quickly, as it should have, to disseminate the >news to its employees but should have moved more rapidly in its reporting. >The newsroom didn't need to add professional doubt to personal agony, he >says. > >"Anecdotally, I know staffers who were aware of all of this from the >start," Kalas says. "There had been discussion of the cause of Rafe's death >among staff members before they saw the cause of his death in the paper. >They knew something was awry, and I think some were looking for answers. >Whether or not the newsroom is divided over how the paper covered these >deaths, I can't say." > >BONNIE BUCQUEROUX ISN'T so sure the paper has been as sensitive as it >should be, either to its employees or to its readership. Bucqueroux, the >coordinator for the Victims and the Media Program at Michigan State >University's School of Journalism, says the Review-Journal has left its >reporters with at least two dilemmas. > >If the paper pulled any punches to protect staffers, will the newspaper >apply its usual standard or its exception when reporting the next time on a >peccadillo or tragedy involving a public figure? Bucqueroux asks. One >standard is not necessarily better than the other, she says, but the >Review-Journal risks its credibility by failing to be consistent. > >Newspapers should not choose to be more compassionate, says Carl Gottlieb, >deputy director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. No one would >suggest papers refrain from doing stories on child abuse, racism or sexual >assault because they are hurtful, he says. And although there has been no >suggestion of it, what if, through its benign neglect, the Review-Journal >ignored the possibility of heroin dealing or other criminal activity in its >newsroom? Gottlieb asks. > >"Sometimes this job hurts," Gottlieb says. "While it is probably human >nature to protect or think you are protecting your own, a newspaper doesn't >do itself any favors by not reporting or delaying the reporting of >something it knows it should report. We as journalists don't deserve >special treatment by affording ourselves special standards. In my mind, >they took advantage of an incident to go all touchy-feely when they have >left a lot of issues unexamined." > >Gottlieb also struck at Bucqueroux's second dilemma - deciding what moral >obligation a newspaper has to find meaning in tragic stories. Bucqueroux >teaches a model for newspaper coverage in three acts: the initial coverage; >the inevitable follow-up; and, finally, the story or stories that place the >horror in its human context. "It is our contention that if we are to delve >into the lives of individual victims, it needs to be done for a purpose," >she says. "There is a nobility in Act Three stories, and newspapers have a >vested interest in doing them." > >A review of what followed the initial reporting in Las Vegas suggests that >the local newspapers and television stations covered the stories in a >straight, albeit delayed, fashion in Act One. The Review-Journal Act Two >follow-up ended September 22 with a four-paragraph story, on page 9 of the >B section, on a Clark County coroner's ruling that Tammariello died of an >accidental drug overdose. After its initial heart attack story, the Las >Vegas Sun ran an editorial tribute to Tammariello and Evans and two >Associated Press stories on the police report disclosures and the suicide >of Evans. Meek did not deem the Tammariello story significant enough to >follow. > >The relative silence of the Las Vegas Sun was perhaps the most surprising, >given the animosity between the two newspapers and their editors, Mitchell >and Sun Editor Brian Greenspun. Or perhaps not. Sun Managing Editor Michael >J. Kelley, who was in charge of the coverage, says he didn't believe the >two Review-Journal employees were big enough public figures to merit more >coverage. Besides, Kelley says, he has no taste for trashing the dead. > >"Then we would have had everybody doing the wrong thing for the wrong >reasons," Kelley says. "I was taught that the people who read obituaries >keep them as family treasures. I'm not here to trash Tammariello and Evans. >I'm here to write news stories." > >The Sun took a stab at an Act Three news story on October 24. Kim Smith >wrote a lengthy piece on the rise of heroin deaths and the spread of >addiction in Las Vegas. Smith mentioned Tammariello and Evans once in >paragraph nine and never again. > >One Review-Journal reporter, who asked to remain anonymous, says she is >hopeful the paper can reach the place where it can write in depth about >what happened. > >Natalie Patton, an education reporter for the Review-Journal and a longtime >colleague of Joan Tammariello, expressed her disappointment that some >fellow staffers found out about the writers' deaths by reading about it in >the newspaper or seeing the KTNV-TV story. "I can't understand why Mitch >[Editor Mitchell] won't talk about it, and I told him so," Patton says. "We >preach openness. We demand openness as reporters. We should be willing to >talk about this openly." > >BUT WHILE FREDERICK told a Review-Journal newsroom gathering that there >would come a time for the paper to tell its story, Zobell says that time >wouldn't be soon. "It is still pretty raw, and our biggest worry is still >for Joan," he says. "We'd like for her to be comfortable here. We want very >much for Joan to stay with the Review-Journal. She's a very important part >of our staff, and we like her very much." > >Joan Tammariello is unlikely to suffer from public scrutiny, according to >almost everyone familiar with the story. In a town where murder and drug >abuse are commonplace, in a state with the nation's second-highest suicide >rate, Tammariello and Evans "were a blip on the screen and gone," former >Review-Journal Managing Editor Hausch says. "The public didn't care about >it more than 15 minutes after it happened." > >Nor was Hausch surprised that no one wrote to the newspapers questioning >the coverage. This semester, Hausch had to convince some of the students in >her media ethics class that Tammariello ought to be covered. The consensus >had been that he had a right to privacy, she says. > >"Journalists hold people to higher ethical standards every day. They don't >allow people ethical lapses," Hausch says. "You can use the cloak around >Joanie to cover your ethical lapses, and maybe the public wasn't paying >attention this time. But you have to be careful because you don't ever know >which ethical lapse is going to blow up on you." > >------- > >Here is Rafeal's final column on the Drug War, less than two weeks before >his death caused not by heroin, but by heroin prohibition. If heroin were >not prohibited, dosage would be known and people would not overdose: > >Peter > >-------- > >Sunday, August 22, 1999 >Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal > >COLUMN: Rafael Tammariello >We've waged an 85-year war against eccentricity > > > > More even than European conquest, Hitler was fixated on "solving" the >"Jewish Problem." > Jews, as Hitler saw things, were parasites, spiritually and morally >corrupt, powerful and conspiratorial, purveyors of decadence, a corrosive >influence on Germanic culture and a clear and present danger to the German >state. That's what Hitler preached, and what Nazified Germans believed, even >though it was false, all of it. > What if by some miracle, a suddenly enlightened Hitler had stood >before the masses and spoken the truth: That, as a tiny minority, the Jews >had no power to threaten the German state, presented no danger; that they >were people, good, bad and indifferent like any others; that they had >enriched, not corrupted culture; that the "Jewish Problem" did not exist? > Had that truth been revealed, the "Jewish Problem" would have vanished >like the phantasm it was. > America's "Drug Problem" is likewise a chimera, even if its reality is >an article of faith which holds that drug users are parasites, purveyors of >decadence, a corrupting influence on society; that drugs are a force so >powerful they constitute a clear and present danger to the nation. Drug >users are the Jews of 20th century America -- hounded, persecuted, shipped >off to prisons and labor camps by the hundreds of thousands. > But our "Drug Problem" is not real, and if only the national >leadership would let go its fixation on this dangerous mirage, 10 years from >now we would look back on the Drug War in horror, as Germans do the >Holocaust. > (For the analogy, credit to Daniel K. Benjamin and Roger Leroy >Miller's insightful 1991 book, "Undoing Drugs: Beyond Legalization.") > Be advised that the United States -- where all drugs, including >cocaine, heroin, morphine and opium, were legal -- didn't have a "Drug >Problem" until prohibitionists created it out of thin air for propaganda >purposes in the push for enactment of the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914. > In the 19th century, drug use was widely viewed as mere eccentricity. >Opium dens were centrally located. Pharmacies sold morphine -- or anything >else -- over the counter. Heroin could be ordered through the mail. > In the late 1800s, your typical morphine addict was a doctor, a >patient suffering pain or a middle-aged woman who lived in the South. Opium >was the soporific of choice among Chinese laborers, itinerant gamblers and >prostitutes. Cocaine attracted the "melancholy" and society's workaholics. >(Thanks to David T. Courtwright's 1982 study, "Dark Paradise: Opiate >Addiction in America Before 1940.") > Among the prominent cocaine users of the era were Thomas Edison, >President William McKinley and Sigmund Freud. Opium aficionados included >Edgar Allen Poe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and many other poets and authors; >lots of physicians, noted actors, musicians, professors, scientists and >politicians. Most were just plain working people. > By the turn of the century, Courtwright calculates (through study of >import, pharmacy and tax records and contemporary surveys) addicts >constituted less than 1 percent of the population, and addiction was in >steady decline. The "Drug Problem" did not exist until evangelical >prohibitionists like Harry Anslinger and his federal allies alerted >everybody to the heretofore unnoticed peril. > The prohibition of recreational drugs after 1914 quickly turned >hundreds of thousands of solid citizens into criminals. Hundreds of >physicians became jailbirds. Black-market merchants demanded piles of cash >for what used to be a few pennies worth of powder from the friendly local >apothecary. > "The scope of this change," writes Courtwright, "can be described by >the etymology of a single word, 'junkie.' During the early 1920s, a number >of New York City addicts supported themselves by picking through industrial >dumps for scraps of copper, lead, zinc and iron, which they collected in a >wagon and then sold to a dealer. Junkie, in its original sense, literally >meant junkman. The term was symbolically appropriate as well, since the >locus of addiction had, within a single generation, shifted from the office >and parlor to the desolate piles of urban debris." > It is against these people, rendered desperate and powerless by the >drug laws, that we wage war. Like Hitler's anti-Jewish laws, our Drug War >compels people into depravity and criminality -- and then we persecute them >on the grounds of their depraved criminality. > Eighty-five years of the Drug War have wrought a stupendously complex >Rube Goldberg apparatus -- a dozen layers of law enforcement, a vast web of >repressive laws, an exploding prison system, an archipelago of treatment and >re-education programs, hideous turf wars in the inner city and, most >recently, young Americans dying in the fetid Colombian jungles in service of >the impossible task of eradicating a trade that cannot be eradicated even >inside the walls of maximum security prisons. > All this -- and for what, exactly? To solve the "Drug Problem"; to >stop maybe 1 percent of our citizens from indulging an eccentricity a saner >century correctly viewed as causing a "problem" no more serious than >skipping church. > >Rafael Tammariello is a Review-Journal editorial writer. His column appears >on Sunday. > > > >------- > >And just so you know how Rafael felt about Hitler, consider this, his final >column, period, written only a week after the previous one, so the >comparison to this Hitler and the Drug War fuehrers is fresh: > > >Time magazine's Person of the Century: Hitler or Einstein > > > > > Time magazine is polling readers online, preparing to unveil its >"Person of the Century," whom the magazine characterizes as "that person >who, for better or worse, most influenced the course of history over the >past 100 years." > The inquiry is, as stated, value-neutral.... Time's poll does not ask >who was the century's "greatest" man. It asks only who was the "most >influential" in the course of 20th century history. > To that query, the choice seems quickly to get down to two: Albert >Einstein and ... Adolf Hitler. > Why these two? Because Hitler demonstrated, more graphically than any >other figure in history, the essential evil of civilization; and Einstein >bestowed upon mankind the tool it needs to destroy that evil. > Hitler was unique in his efficient use of all the trappings of high >civilization to murder his fellow man. Yes, the homicidal psychopath Stalin >racked up a higher body count, but Stalin was a throwback to the >preindustrial age, crudely and unsystematically working and starving his >enemies to death, letting them rot in dungeons, shooting or hanging them >according to the psychotic whims manifest in his periodic purges. > But Hitler was a man fully of the 20th century, who systematically >employed the latest technology in the service of power. He created the >single institution unique to the Nazi state -- the death factory. Here was a >complex, efficient "manufacturing" operation -- not unlike an automobile >assembly line -- that gathered "raw material" from the far reaches of the >Reich to efficiently and cost-effectively produce a finished product: Dead >Jews. Hitler's death factories sported all the trappings of a modern >industrial plant: Transportation grids, receiving lines, general managers, >foremen, security personnel, bookkeepers, quality control, waste disposal. > Hitler epitomized the evil inherent in civilization. He demonstrated >for all the world to witness, the iron-clad fatal flaw of civilized man: >That civilization is driven by the will to power; that those who crave power >the most will do whatever it takes to get it; and that those who covet power >above all else tend to be the worst psychopaths among us. And worst of all: >that those who want power the most tend to get it. > History has seen a thousand monsters like Hitler -- men willing to >wade through oceans of blood to get their hands on absolute power. Their >names are too numerous to mention: Augustus Caesar, Tiberius, Caligula, >Genghis Khan, Robespierre, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, Idi Amin -- >swine among men who shared a common trait: They were the ones who wanted >power the most, so they got it. That is civilization's curse and its doom. > Hitler was the 20th century's most influential man because he >demonstrated once and for all the evil of power and its hideous potential >for destruction, especially when melded with the inventions of "the clever >animal," as the philosopher of power Andrew Bard Schmookler calls civilized >man. > And Einstein? Einstein, the cleverest of the clever animals, gave us >the cure for what ails us -- the elegant, simple formula for eradicating the >plague of civilization: E = mc2. > One theory, bleak as it may seem, goes like this: Given the inevitable >rise of murderous psychopaths such as Hitler and the equally unstoppable >proliferation of thermonuclear weapons, civilization will destroy itself. >But artifacts of it will remain, and the clever animal and the rule of power >will rise again -- more quickly this time, by grace of the stray artifacts >of the wrecked civilization. Again, civilization will destroy itself, and >rise again, even more quickly, with the cycle of creation and destruction >repeating itself many times. In the end, perhaps, mankind will bludgeon >himself into the realization that civilization itself is evil and he will >forsake civilization, (returning to the hunting-and-gathering culture for >which nature designed him) and establish hard, harsh taboos, sacrificing, at >a very young age, those children who show inordinate interest in wielding >power over their fellow children and those who exhibit a penchant for >inventiveness. > In such as post-civilized world, Einstein would have to be put to the >knife at, say, age 5. But so would Hitler > >------ > >Here is the sole letter opposing him--so insipid it does not need a single >comment: > > > >Sunday, September 05, 1999 >Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal > > >Time to regroup, not surrender in the war against drugs > > > > To the editor: > Re: Rafael Tammariello's, Aug. 22 column, "We've waged an 85-year war >against eccentricity." > I usually agree with Mr. Tammariello's deductions, but I can't go >along at all with his views on drugs and the drug war. Perhaps he's >acquainted with a few folks who are using and still functioning in polite >society. With a "drug problem" no more serious than that, I could understand >his reasoning. > He asserts that there was no "drug problem" until it was created "out >of thin air" by prohibitionists in 1914. He describes the "saner" 19th >century, when citizens on drugs were regarded merely as "eccentrics" causing >a problem "no more serious than skipping church." > It was no doubt easier in that "saner century" to hide any affliction >or addiction. The family could drag its "eccentric" out at appropriate >times, prop him up and pretend that there was no problem. The family fed, >clothed, housed and humored its resident "eccentric" and life went on. But >don't tell me that there wasn't a cost paid by someone for this. Maybe the >toll was stress suffered by the family for having to cover up; maybe a >wife's or mother's daily revulsion; maybe a lifetime of apologies who >couldn't stop a loved one's "eccentricity"; maybe a theft here and there, a >suicide, a murder or two, or the "eccentric's" designation as the village >idiot. > If the authors cited in Mr. Tammariello's column could have >interviewed -- a la Barbara Walters -- the families of these "eccentrics," >the family members may not have used the phrase "drug problem" but they most >certainly would have acknowledged distress and misery. > Fast forward to 1999. We are no longer agrarian, small-town America. >An industrial/technological society demands that citizens pay attention and >everyone is expected to produce. I don't want an "eccentric" preparing my >taxes, let alone performing surgery on me. A permissive, status-seeking, >materialistic, rude, uneducated and feel-good populace in this bigger and >bigger melting pot has allowed the sheer number of "eccentrics" to infringe >on the rights and freedoms of non-eccentric, law-abiding citizens. > In 1999, where would Mr. Tammariello draw the line? If you find your >10-year-old smoking pot, do you say, "I guess he's just going to be >eccentric." > Mr. Tammariello would have us believe that the price and availability >of drugs now as compared to in the 19th century has created a lot of the >"drug problem." That's grasping at straws. > I agree that the present strategies used in fighting the drug war are >mostly ineffective. But to describe the "drug problem" as a "chimera," is to >ignore the fact that these "eccentrics" will do most anything to acquire >their drugs, including taking Mr. Tammariello's property and life. > We may not be celebrating big victories in the drug war; but it's time >to regroup, not surrender. > SUSAN HUFF > Las Vegas > >------- > >On the other hand, here's what most people had to say: > > > >Sunday, August 29, 1999 >Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal > > >Columnist right: Drug war is a fiasco > > > > > > To the editor: > I suspect that you will be getting mail protesting the analogy drawn >between Jews and drugs in the Aug. 22 column by Rafael Tammariello ("We've >aged an 85-year war against eccentricity"). > I am a Jew. I do not find the analogy offensive. > The war on drugs has been a fiasco, costing billions of dollars and >thousands of lives. Our prisons have been filled and police and politicians >corrupted. I don't see how decriminalizing drugs could result in anything >but improvement. Not panacea, improvement. > STAN AMES > Henderson > > -- To the editor: > Congratulations to you for publishing Mr. Tammariello's >well-researched Aug. 15 column. The drug laws constitute "bad law," and the >proper remedy for bad law is repeal. Thus, our drug laws should be repealed >forthwith. It's too bad that there are so many bureaucrats with a vested >interest in maintaining the status quo on drug policy. Otherwise repeal >might stand a chance. > Nonetheless, with courageous journalists like yourselves living up to >your obligations, there is a chance that the citizenry will be educated and >perhaps have its collective mind opened. > RICHARD SINNOTT > Fort Pierce, Fla. > > -- To the editor: > About Rafael Tammariello's column, "We've waged an 85-year war against >eccentricity": > It was great. I don't usually write simply to state my consent, but >this is the exception. > I have written articles on drug policy myself, but have hesitated to >use the analogy of addicts as modern-day Jews; Mr. Tammariello has found the >right wording. > It is my true feeling that, when drug prohibition comes to an end, our >"drug problem" will vanish into thin air, much as the Third Reich did in May >1945. > HARRY BEGO > Utrecht, Netherlands > > -- To the editor: > Thanks to Rafael Tammariello for his remarkably insightful piece >"We've waged an 85-year war against eccentricity" (Aug. 22). Drug users >clearly serve as scapegoats for many social problems. If we don't want >another arbitrarily chosen group of people to be completely dehumanized, >it's time to recognize this fact, and also question the leaders and >institutions that promote this scapegoating. > The Nazis may have persecuted Jews out of sheer hatred. But in >addition to the pleasure many of them took in persecution, the Nazi state >benefited from the free slave labor available at concentration camps, and >the possessions that were seized before Jews were shipped to the camps. > It's important to look at the modern situation in the same way. >Whatever irrational venom today's drug warriors direct toward drug users, we >must also remember that there are concrete benefits for them. Many law >officials understand the slightest retreat from the battle against marijuana >is tantamount to killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Without an >excuse to seize assets from (middle-class) marijuana users, the DEA and >state and local police go back to begging for money from politicians, not >simply taking it from hapless citizens. > To recognize the innocent casualties of the drug war is crucial. But >recognizing the profiteers is just as important to end the destruction. > STEPHEN YOUNG > Roselle, Ill. > > -- To the editor: > Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My wife and I have just finished >reading Rafael Tammariello's column of Aug. 22, ("85-year war"), and we >cannot find the words to express our agreement with him and our outrage at >our government. > This cycle of police, courts and prisons promoting their agendas (and >careers) at the expense of the most politically ineffectual minority of all >must stop. > The more effective the interdiction programs become, the more >expensive the drugs, the more crime, the more police, courts, prisons, and >on and on. > It's all a horrible circle with no way out. This insane war on drugs >must come to an end. History shows that prohibitions of any kind only lead >to organized crime and violence, not to mention the billions of tax dollars >spent on ludicrous new government agencies. What we do to our bodies and >lives -- as adult citizens, behind closed doors, not infringing on the >rights, safety and welfare of others -- is our own damn business. > Mr. and Mrs. LARRY COHN > Las Vegas > > > >------- > >And here is the obnoxious column from the "alternative" paper Las Vegas City >Life: > > > >Sept. 30, 1999 > > >The truth hurts >A Review-Journal columnist's overdose death shows that he was dead wrong >about drugs >By Al Tobin > > > >Less than a month before he died from a heroin overdose, Review-Journal >columnist and editorial writer Rafael Tammariello made the following >observation. > >Rafe, as he was known around the newsroom, stated in his Sunday column that >drugs are a problem "no more serious than skipping church." It is with great >solemnity that I point out the irony of that remark. > >Like Rafe, I grew up in the rock generation, a generation that viewed drugs >as cool. They were part of the social landscape. Only thing was, we were >dead wrong about drugs. And Rafe was too. > >Hey, I'm no angel. I won't tell you I've never inhaled. But I will tell you >I never mainlined heroin, which is something Rafe did. > >Do you think when Rafe wrote about drugs that he had an ethical and >journalistic obligation to disclose that he himself was an enthusiastic drug >user? I would argue yes. > >I also argue that because of this, there was a profound intellectual and >journalistic dishonesty to Rafe's writings on the subject. > >I don't pretend to know how often he got high, when he started using heroin, >or how often be used it. But I always strongly suspected, given Rafe's >passionate prose on the subject, that if you looked, you'd find dope smack >dab in the middle of his personal life. > >One lesson that can be taken from Rafe's death is that junkies come in all >shapes and sizes. Sometimes the junkie may be the guy sitting next to you at >work, or the relative playing with your kids in the back yard. Many junkies >are quite functional, even excel at their work. There are junkie athletes, >junkie doctors, even junkie journalists. > >When Rafe died, the R-J paid tribute to him. Columnists John L. Smith and >Jon Ralston and Editor Tom Mitchell eulogized and praised him. Excerpts from >his columns were printed in the Sunday paper in tribute to the man and his >work. > >He was lionized, canonized and memorialized. It was as if a race was being >run to see who could say the most nice things about Rafe, in the most >eloquent way possible. > >Politicians were even asked to comment about his death for the paper. I >suspect were they to say what they really thought, they would tell you they >considered many of Rafe's views completely nuts. Instead, they tempered >their remarks, choosing to praise Rafe's formidable writing skills. Can't >say I blame them. It's generally considered poor taste to speak ill of the >dead, unless they're someone like Hitler or a lousy football coach. > >Hundreds attended Rafe's funeral. > >The folks who call the shots at the R-J deserve credit for reporting that >evidence of illegal drug use was found along with Tammariello's body. > >A week later, when it became official that Rafe had died of an overdose, >Rafe was nothing more than an R-J afterthought. The cause of his death was >relegated to the "Nevada Briefs" listings on Page 9B. > >What's obvious from Rafe's death is that he lived his life according to the >unhealthy philosophies he preached in print. > >What's even more absurd is that for years the R-J--that self-righteous >institution of responsible mainstream journalism--gave Rafe a weekly forum >to influence others with his views from the lunatic fringe. > >His influence was evident in many R-J editorials. You know the type of >editorial I'm talking about. They're the kind for which the R-J is famous. >The kind that left you wondering if they were written by a right-wing >Libertarian on smack. > >Rafe's writing ability was considerable, his style unmistakable, his >intellect substantial. I totally agreed with him in his criticism of >America's wasteful and ineffective "War on Drugs." > >But I had real problems whenever he seemed to downplay the real-life horrors >associated with prolonged drug use. I had a real problem with his philosophy >that if a person wants to wreck his life using drugs, he should be allowed >to do so as long as he isn't hurting anyone else. The problem is their >actions always hurt the ones who love them most. > >I apologize if I've wounded anyone with these comments, in particular Rafe's >widow, Joan. It is not my intention to dance on Rafe's grave. Nor is it my >intention to hurt anyone at the R-J in their time of mourning. > >As a nonconformist himself, I don't think Rafe would have a problem with >anything I've said here. > >Sometimes the truth hurts. And truth is what newspapers are supposed to be >all about. It's as important for a commentary like this to be published as >it was for the R-J to deify Rafe in death. > >And Rafe, if you're able to read or hear any of this, know that many tears >have been shed and many prayers said over your passing. And hopefully, >you're someplace where your soul is being bathed in God's warm, loving >light, and the smell of death and drugs no longer surrounds you. > > >Al Tobin is a former Review-Journal reporter > > > >------ > >As you can imagine, I'll have a lot more to say about this. For now I am in >shock. And as for Mr. Tobin, the smell of his sanctimonious bullshit >surrounds me. I gotta take a bath. > > > >Peter > >' > > > > > > >