System Hooked Up Because of Rise in Drug Use, Especially Heroin.

Fraser police are trying to get Fraser High School students to help themselves by using a toll-free hot line to tell police who is getting in trouble and where trouble is about to start.

All calls to the hot line are confidential. No one but the caller knows who made the call.

Fraser Acting Public Safety Director George Rouhib and DARE Officer Lisa Pettyes said the new program, now in effect, was started because of an increase in drugs and alcohol among middle school and high school students.

[continues 430 words]

Health Officials: Fatalities Highest Ever At 550

Health officials are blaming a spike of deaths linked to the powerful painkiller fentanyl for pushing drug overdose deaths in Wayne County to an all-time high.

The county's Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday reported more than 550 drug deaths in 2006, a 20 percent increase from 2005, when drug overdoses accounted for 457 deaths.

"We do believe that at some level the fentanyl issue is here to stay and that there may be other drugs that are corrupting the illegal drug supply," said Dr. Calvin Trent, a clinical psychologist for the Detroit Bureau of Substance Abuse.

[continues 259 words]

When Zak Kusz gets to college, his professors will probably refer him to better information on marijuana.

He will discover that marijuana laws were the product of ignorance and nonsense. Marijuana was originally outlawed for two major reasons: Racial prejudice against Mexican immigrants and other minorities and the fear that heroin addiction would lead to the use of marijuana -- exactly the opposite of the modern "gateway" myth that Zak has repeated.

An "expert" on marijuana once testified in court that marijuana could make your incisors grow six inches and drip with blood. He went on to say that, when he tried it, it turned him into a bat. The United States government has had an openly stated campaign to tell tall tales about marijuana since 1937, so it is little wonder that high school students are misinformed.

The history of the marijuana laws is a tale so absurd, readers can have a good laugh by reading it at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm.

Clifford A. Schaffer

Agua Dulce, Calif.

[end]

To the Editor of The Kalamazoo Gazette:

This is in regard to high school student Zak Kusz' Jan 9 letter: "Marijuana should not be legalized".

Perhaps Kusz can explain why he wants marijuana to remain completely unregulated, untaxed and controlled by criminals--who often sell other, much more dangerous drugs like cocaine, heroin and meth and who often offer free samples of the more dangerous drugs to their marijuana customers.

If we were to re-legalize marijuana and sell it in licensed business establishments, this would not happen. Do the readers know of anyone who has been offered a free sample bottle of whiskey, rum or vodka when legally buying beer or wine? I don't either.

Marijuana prohibition is the problem--not the answer.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, AZ 85209

[end]

The stereotypical reasons Zak Kusz offers in his Jan. 9 letter for keeping marijuana illegal are worn-out, reefer-madness lies. The notion that marijuana is a "gateway" drug has been refuted by every peer-reviewed scientific study since 1950.

Science has rejected notions that marijuana leads to drug addiction. The prestigious Institute Of Medicine (IOM) 1997 study on medical marijuana demolished the gateway theory with this devastating statement:

"Whereas the stepping-stone hypothesis presumes a predominantly physiological component to drug progression, the gateway theory is a social theory. The latter does not suggest that the pharmacological qualities of marijuana make it a risk factor for progression to other drug use. Instead it is the legal status of marijuana that makes it a gateway drug."

[continues 71 words]

In a recent demonstration of money well spent during the Bush Administration's tenure, agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency raided medicinal marijuana clinics to confiscate the one medicine many believed could help them. Upholding the concept of federalism by granting supremacy to federal law over California state law, the DEA seized the contraband in part to honor the federal ban of marijuana.

Our country's prohibition of pot began not as a concern for our health but rather as a reflection of early 20th century racism. Harry Anslinger, as commissioner of narcotics in the Bureau of Narcotics, campaigned for marijuana prohibition vehemently. The result was a 1937 act levying a tax on marijuana. During the hearings on the law when it was debated in Congress, Anslinger let this one slip: "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."

[continues 596 words]

Medical Examiner and Police Not Releasing Details

Official details remain sparse, but a man killed Tuesday night by a narcotics officer during an undercover drug buy in Ypsilanti was apparently shot multiple times as he ran from police. The family of David Antjuan Ware, 29, of Ypsilanti, said he was shot six times, at least once in the back. Several witnesses say they heard multiple gunshots as police chased a man from the parking lot of the Keg Party Store on North Huron Street onto Arcade Street, where he eventually collapsed.

[continues 501 words]

Man Arrested at Fatal Police Shooting Also Not Armed, He Says

The attorney for a man arrested at the scene of a fatal police shooting in Ypsilanti Township Tuesday night said Thursday that neither his client nor the man who was killed were carrying weapons.

That contention was one of a few new details to emerge Thursday about the incident, which police said involved undercover agents attempting a drug buy.

David A. Ware, 29, of Ypsilanti died after he was shot several times by police, according to a brief account of the incident that police released Wednesday.

[continues 391 words]

Drug deaths soared by at least 20% in Wayne County last year, the result of a deadly mix of heroin and cocaine laced with fentanyl that received notoriety last spring and summer as fatalities increased in metro Detroit.

On Thursday, the county Department of Health and Human Services released its figures, with the Medical Examiner's Office reporting more than 550 drug deaths through mid-December -- 93 more than that reported in all of the previous year.

The department didn't release how many of the deaths were caused by fentanyl but said the cases were responsible for the increase. Previous reports noted that between September 2005 and October 2006, 198 deaths in the county were linked to fentanyl.

[continues 98 words]

As of Nov. 11, 2006, Canadian workers are allowed to smoke marijuana in the workplace. Two professors have fought to get a special room built into their respective colleges so they can smoke on campus for medical reasons. The use of medical marijuana has give two professors in Toronto the right to smoke pot in a specially ventilated room "Where they can indulge in peace," says CNN.

The York University criminology professor Brian MacLean said, "Without the medication, I am disabled and I'm not able to carry out meaningful, valuable and productive work." He suffers from a sever form of degenerative arthritis.

[continues 146 words]

Michigan is now ranked 16th largest grower of cannabis in the U.S., growing 308,475 plants, weighing 136,012 pounds, worth $218,435,000.

The total worth of the U.S. crop now exceeds $35 billion, making cannabis the largest cash crop grown in the U.S.!

How very sad that the merest mention of this wonderful, God-created plant sends you Michigan Farm Bureau folks and our elected officials cowering and hiding under your desks, while you all jump on the "ethanol" bandwagon which will hurt our great state with more pollution and depletion of our soil's nutrients.

[continues 122 words]

As a retired police officer from the Lansing area, I was saddened to see my profession spend so much time on such a minor case as the one involving Greg Francisco.

As drunken drivers kill innocents and evil men troll the Internet trying to entice young teens to meet them, our profession spends entirely too much time trying to catch adults in simple possession of marijuana. Marijuana prohibition does reduce public safety.

Howard J. Wooldridge

[end]

Marijuana is a very hot topic lately. There has been a big push to legalize it by many pro-marijuana interest groups.

I do not think that marijuana should be legalized. It would affect people's lives. It would also cause many problems in people's lives.

If marijuana were legalized, it would cause many medical problems, such as lung cancer and slower brain function. If people had slower brain function then stuff would get done a lot slower. People would also not want to do as much work.

[continues 63 words]

There has been much talk about the legalization of marijuana in America. I feel it is imperative that marijuana not be made legal.

The legalization of marijuana contradicts everything that this country has worked for over the past several years. Only harm can come from the recreational use of marijuana. Drinking and driving is already a huge problem in our nation, not to mention that marijuana affects common sense and reaction time just as much as alcohol does. Thousands of accidents in America are the result of drinking and driving. The same would be a true statistic for the use of marijuana and driving.

[continues 123 words]

Tips Lead Local Enforcers To Suburban Growers, Crops

Mike Camai never suspected anything unusual about his neighbor Richard Nash.

"He told me, he's a painter -- and I saw him at a paint store," Camai said, adding his surprise to hear that police recently accused Nash of being a drug dealer and charged him with turning his house in Troy into a sophisticated hydroponic operation to grow marijuana.

"To be honest," Camai said, "Richard looked like a good guy."

Law enforcement officials say it is likely there are hundreds of houses nestled in suburban Detroit in which people are hydroponically growing the distinctive-smelling drug, and officers are working hard to sniff them out.

[continues 528 words]

Fentanyl, a powerful painkiller blamed for scores of deaths in metro Detroit last spring, continues to kill drug abusers at an alarming rate, health and law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

In Wayne County alone, fentanyl helped kill 15 people in October, the county medical examiner's office says.

"Fentanyl is now part of the permanent mix, unfortunately," Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano said.

White House drug czar John Walters, who is to visit Detroit today to help open a public health facility, also plans to discuss the fentanyl problem with local officials.

[continues 193 words]

The LSJ's front page article, "Experts: Medical marijuana best as pill" (Dec. 29) was almost entirely wrong.

Let's start with the headline: In fact, experts on medical marijuana are nearly unanimous that ingestion is the wrong way to administer marijuana's active components, called cannabinoids. In an extensive 2003 review, the medical journal The Lancet Neurology concluded, "Oral administration is probably the least satisfactory route for cannabis," because oral cannabinoids are absorbed slowly and unevenly, making proper dose adjustment nearly impossible.

[continues 434 words]

Mattawan native Dean Kuipers June 13 published "Burning Rainbow Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went Up in Smoke." His book attempts to tell the stories of marijuana activists Tom Crosslin and Rolland Rohm, shot and killed by the FBI and state police during a standoff at their 34-acre Newberg Township campground on Labor Day weekend 2001.

[end]

For a majority of residents in the State of Michigan, legalizing the private use of marijuana is still something they are not willing to accept.

Using the plant for medicinal purposes, however, has precedent set by 11 states in the union ranging from California's open-ended law that provides use for, "any illness for which marijuana provides relief," to Vermont's law only allowing those suffering from HIV or AIDS, cancer or Multiple Sclerosis to use.

According to Tim Beck, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), polls indicate that residents are becoming more supportive of medicinal use of marijuana every year.

[continues 415 words]

'Bup' Offers Great Potential in the Fight Against the Deadly Drug

Heroin abuse plagues many of our communities, bringing drug-related crime and violence and tearing families apart. Roughly 1 million people in the United States are addicted to heroin, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

There are no easy or quick solutions to this epidemic, but effective treatment programs can and must play an integral role as we fight back. In recent years, a new anti-addiction medicine called buprenorphine has revolutionized the way we treat heroin addiction, and Congress recently acted to make it more widely available.

[continues 500 words]