From: jjmckay@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Jim McKay)
Subject: USA Today Article: Deadheads in Court
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 18:57:28 GMT

From Page 1:

DEAD END:  Arrests for LSD are high, the penalty is heavy and many fans 
of the band Grateful Dead find that being "Deadheads" works against them in
court.

From Page 11A:

"Grateful Dead Followers"

ATTACK ON DEADHEADS IS NO HALLUCINATION

"Band's followers handed stiff LSD sentences"
by Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

David Chevrette was a yound free-spirited hippie.

His only possessions were his clothes, a dog, and a 1970 VW bus painted 
with peace signs.  For fun, he followed the Grateful Dead rock group on 
concert tours.

Then the 20-year old got busted for sellin g LSD in 1990 to a guy he met on 
the beach.

Now he's doing 10 years in federal prison with no parole  -- a longer
sentence than those given in federal court to rapists, armed robbers and
some big drug dealers.

Chevrette is the victim of a concerted crackdown on Garetful Dead fans
-- called Deadheads -- and a quirk in the federal drug law.

That quirk -- involving whether to weigh the paper or sugar cube the drug is
stored on  -- has resulted in what Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., calls an 
"unintended inequity".

In short:  LSD sentences are out of proportion -- by a factor of 50 or
more  -- with other drug sentences.

Chevrette's term for $1,500 worth of LSD is more severe than if he smuggled 
$100,000 worth of heroin.

That quirk buried deep and unnoticed in a large drug law -- has been turned
into a bludgeon in teh battle against Deadheads.

Today 1,500 to 2,000 Deadheads are in prison, up from fewer than 100 four 
years ago.  Most are young middle-class whites or old hippies.  Many are 
serving mandatory no-parole prison terms of 10 or 20 years.

"We've opened up a vein here," says Gene Haislip, head of LSD enforcement
at the DEA.  "We're going to mine it until this whole thing turns around."

The DEA has tripled spending, personnel and arrests for LSD since January 1990.
"We've seen a marked pattern of LSD distribution at Grateful Dead concerts,"
says Haislip.  "That has something to do with why so many Deadheads are 
arrested."

The Grateful Dead -- top grossing concert act last year ($34,000,000) --
has been around since the 1960s.

Some people are weekend fans, such as U.S. Vice President-elect Gore and his
wife, Tipper, who took their daughter to a June Dead show.

Others are more devoted.  They wear tie-dyed shirts and catch five or ten 
shows a year.

The most dedicated fans follow the band from show to show, cretaing a traveling
village of 3,000 to 6,000 sometimes called "Deadland".

The values are pure '60s:  peace, love, vegitarianism, communal living and
partying.  To many, mind expansion is also part of the Deadhead experience
-- and that means LSD.

"Yes, LSD is my sacrament," says Franklin Martz, a Haigh-Ashbury born hippie
who saw his first Dead show in 1967.  He's now serving a 40-year LSD 
sentence.  

This brazen advocacy angers many police and parents.

A USA Today review of more than 30 Deadhead cases found thay routinely have
their musical tastes, dress and lifestyle used against them in the
criminal justice system:

*  More Police Searches:  A U. of N.H. police officier acknowledged that 
he pulled over cars with Garteful Dead bumper stickers.

*  Bond Denial:  Deadhead Janet Godwin's license plate was presented at her 
N.C. bond hearing to prove that she was a flight risk.  The plate read
RAMBROSE, after the Grateful Dead song "Ramble On Rose".

*  Negative Portrayal To Jury And News Media:  Police told the media that
Michael Thrasher's 1.984 doese of LSD has a satanic symbol, an upside down 
pentagram.  No mention was made of the word "LOVE" stamped across the
LSD paper.

The jury learned that Thrasher, 19, a college student from Portland 
was in a band named Ethel & Jake's Psychadelic Jug Band, Jamboree, and Wino 
Wrestling Team.  "A big issue at my trial was my 'alternative lifestyle',"
says Thrasher.

(The article and supplementary articles which fill the page also talk 
about courts associating Deadheads with "cults"; Deadheads being classified
as "gang oriented" in prison, an ACLU comment, problems with other 
wise routine plea talks; "justidiction shopping", as well as auxiulliary
USA Today type articles talking about quirks in the law and the Dead's
spokesman Dennie McNally's comments.)

As someone who has been a major fan of the Dead for eight years but not
an illegal substance user, I find it ridiculously discrimanatory to pre-judge 
everyone like this, to say the least.  But that's life.  Maybe the 
DEA is probably watching Gore and Phil Jackson too.