MINNEAPOLIS - A Shakopee man who was the last defendant remaining at trial connected to what may be the largest indoor marijuana-growing operation in Minnesota history was convicted Tuesday in federal court.

After nearly three hours of deliberation, a jury found Lai Pham, 36, guilty on one count of conspiracy to manufacture 1,000 or more marijuana plants. During the trial on Dec. 8, two other defendants, Tung Nguyen, 34, Bloomington, and Tuan Dang, 32, Inver Grove Heights, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy.

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Criticisms of Jim Ramstad for drug czar are unwarranted.

He's dinged for opposing needle exchange and medical marijuana, but there are far more critical substance abuse issues facing the nation.

Regarding needle exchange, it's true that there's good science supporting the practice, so hopefully he will change his views. But needle exchange will never be the solution to the problem. On medical marijuana, the science is very mixed, with no medical protocols that help more than harm yet conceived. Worse, the Drug Policy Alliance, which pushes medical marijuana and also criticizes Ramstad, is in the hypocritical position of advocating both for recreational marijuana and medical marijuana. Nobody seems to notice the glaring and suspicious contradiction there.

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Back in June 2005, local police officers in Garden City, Calif., arrested Felix Kha for marijuana possession. After the charges were dropped by local prosecutors when they learned that the pot was for medicinal purposes, Kha demanded his weed back, and the courts agreed with him. The city resisted, eventually taking their case all the way the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Monday, the Supreme Court decided they would not consider the case. This means that the lower court's ruling stands and the city must return the seized reefer to Kha.

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A "bare-bones" 2009 Olmsted County budget proposal was introduced to county commissioners on Monday, the first day of a two-day financial review.

The $172 million budget is a 4.1 percent increase over the 2008 budget. The added spending accommodates many inflation-level spending increases, plus the addition of seven full- and part-time staff members. With several other positions being cut, the net staffing increase is an equivalent of 1.35 full-time jobs.

"Our expenses are pretty much bare bones," said County Administrator Richard Devlin. The county anticipates deep cuts in state financial assistance later this year, after the state grapples with a projected $3 billion to $5 billion deficit.

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Michelle Rae Sanford Was Sentenced To 48 Months

A 40-year-old St. Peter woman sentenced to prison in 2007 after a jury found her guilty of felony methamphetamine possession has been granted a new trial by the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Michelle Rae Sanford should have been allowed to call an expert witness to testify that she has post-traumatic stress disorder, the appeals court justices ruled. The testimony could have explained her erratic behavior, which prosecutors used to argue she was under the influence of drugs, the ruling said.

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A state-funded task force, the Paul Bunyan Drug Task Force, operates out of Bemidji and includes officers from many local city and county jurisdictions.

I find this story fascinating in that the task force is named after a mythical person who hung out with a mythical ox because all the information in the article, while possibly true, is based on the myth that we will ever "win" this crazy war.

I am a retired federal agent with more than three decades of service to my country in this failed effort. It was initially hard for me to admit that we had failed and that we could never win. Perhaps if we had not called it a "war" then we could have changed our policy once we saw that it would not work. I am now a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Our 10,000-member organization consists of police, judges, lawyers, prison wardens and the general public.

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Beltrami County has been holding its own in the war against drugs, says Gary Peterson, supervisor of local drug task force efforts.

"Our efforts are unique in Minnesota, and probably in the United States," Peterson, a Beltrami County deputy assigned supervise the task forces, told Beltrami County commissioners last month.

A state-funded task force, the Paul Bunyan Drug Task Force, operates out of Bemidji and includes officers from many local city and county jurisdictions. The Headwaters Safe Trails Task Force, funded through the FBI, is also headquartered at Bemidji, and is responsible for drug enforcement efforts on area American Indian reservations.

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I noticed the most recent poll from the Hutchinson Leader that asked people to give their opinions on the 21-year-old alcohol drinking age. I wonder why we are debating about a substance that is already legal when we need marijuana prohibition policy now before any more innocent people are sent to jail or prison.

Medical marijuana is a popular issue. A nationwide poll showed 78 percent of Americans "support making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering," and state medical marijuana initiatives have been repeatedly endorsed by voters. Marijuana has never caused a single medically documented overdose death -- unlike alcohol.

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The federal case against two top aides and friends of Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher will enter its second week today with more testimony about how the investigation unfolded.

Inside details of the investigation emerged Friday when a witness, FBI Special Agent Timothy Bisswurm, revealed that it began in spring of 2004 when he first spoke with Shawn Arvin of St. Paul, a former drug dealer who was working with the DEA to reduce a potential 17-year prison sentence.

In early November, Bisswurm used Arvin to set up the first "integrity check" designed to see whether St. Paul police officer Timothy Rehak would act lawfully when presented with money or valuables.

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WHO MET: Northfield School Board members, Sibley Elementary Principal Scott Sannes, Police Chief Mark Taylor, Officer Paul Haider and four sixth-grade graduates of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program at Sibley Elementary School: Erin Hahn, Meg Etzell, Noah Hile and Mason Lindenfelser.

WHAT HAPPENED: Sannes, Taylor and Haider gave a brief introduction to the DARE program at Sibley, and then Hahn, Etzell, Hile and Lindenfelser all read their DARE graduation essays to the school board.

WHAT THEY SAID: Taylor thanked the school district for allowing the police department to teach the DARE pilot program in three fifth-grade classrooms at Sibley and expressed the desire to continue and possibly expand DARE in the district's elementary schools.

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A 16-year-old girl nearly died at the hands of three rapists in a West End apartment on Nov. 4, 2004.

Sue "Acorn" Hang, 21, used an empty beer can to sexually assault the unconscious teen and was sentenced to 8 3/4 years in prison.

Three years later, on the other end of town, Carl Dickalo Gipson, 33, sold seven grams of cocaine -- a little more than the weight of a U.S. nickel -- to a police informant. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.

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The district says the searches at its four high schools are meant to be a deterrent to students using drugs.

Drug-sniffing dogs will be unleashed in Osseo schools' parking lots this fall.

Initially, the dogs and their police handlers will do random searches at the district's four high schools. Depending on the results, the searches could expand to include high school and junior high school buildings, said assistant superintendent Kate Maguire.

The searches are part of the district's plan to make schools safer, and not in response to any particular incidents, Magurie said. The school district is coordinating the searches with police departments in Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center and Maple Grove.

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No Charges Yet Against Husband, Wife

A Hennepin County sheriff's deputy and his wife, who works as a nurse in the jail, have been arrested on drug charges, officials said Wednesday.

No charges have been filed yet against the Burnsville pair, Steven John Despiegelaere, 38, and Sarah Denise Despiegelaere, 36. He was in the Dakota County Jail but posted his $10,000 bail Wednesday evening. She is held without bail in the Hennepin County Adult Detention Center.

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Over the past few years, the number of methamphetamine (meth) labs and meth users in Minnesota have declined significantly, according to a new report published by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). "Methamphetamine in Minnesota: A report on the impact of one illicit drug," is the first comprehensive review on the topic in this state. It describes historical trends and economic costs of meth use; outcomes of the 2005 anti-meth law; and the range of national, state and local efforts aimed at combating meth. It also provides recommendations for further strengthening efforts to reduce the use of meth and other drugs.

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Though America has made strides against discrimination, troubling pockets of race-based bias persist. Case in point: Two recent national reports documented drug enforcement practices that unfairly arrest and imprison African-Americans at much higher rates than whites.

Reports by the Sentencing Project and Human Rights Watch use federal data to document effects of the nation's 30-year war on drugs. Both conclude that the policies have had a devastating impact on lower-income, inner-city blacks. While the number of drug arrests rose 1,100 percent since 1980, disproportionate numbers of blacks were arrested and jailed for possession -- even though both races use illegal drugs at the same rates.

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An anti-methamphetamine law passed in Minnesota three years ago has been a big success.

The law change resulted in drastically fewer meth labs, and in much less meth available to users, according to Becker County Sheriff Tim Gordon, and a new report by the Minnesota Department of Health.

The report, Methamphetamine in Minnesota: a report on the impact of one illicit drug, is the first comprehensive review of the impact of meth in Minnesota.

It describes historical trends and economic costs of meth use; outcomes of the 2005 anti-meth law; and the range of national, state and local efforts aimed at combating meth.

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The prohibition of cannabis has persisted for many decades, the result of undue pressure by corporate and government forces that rely on false information and junk science. Public preferences are continually usurped, and the bad situation grows worse. This has been evident in recent opinion pieces printed in the News Tribune.

The results of marijuana prohibition are negative. We are decades behind developing the potential medical value of cannabis products. We are sacrificing incredible economic benefits afforded by industrial hemp farming. We have inhumanely filled prisons with good citizens who use cannabis for social and recreational purposes. This is not the face of freedom and modernity. Let us remember that marijuana is not a narcotic as U.S. law defines it. It is not addictive like crack or heroin. It can be used to help treat true addiction, as well as numerous other medical conditions. If doctors can be trusted to prescribe morphine, they can handle cannabis. In countries where cannabis is legal there is less use by children. Alcohol and tobacco are much larger threats than cannabis. If we can regulate these substances, managing cannabis should be a cakewalk.

David Hopkins

Duluth

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While there have been studies showing marijuana can shrink cancerous tumors, medical marijuana is essentially a palliative drug. If a doctor recommends marijuana to a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy and it helps them feel better, it's working. In the end, medical marijuana is a quality-of-life issue best left to patients and their doctors.

Federal bureaucrats waging war on non-corporate drugs contend that organic marijuana is not an effective health intervention. The federal government's prescribed intervention for medical marijuana patients is handcuffs, jail cells and criminal records. This heavy-handed approach suggests that drug warriors are not well suited to dictate health-care decisions.

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The organizations that represent Minnesota's police chiefs, sheriffs, county attorneys, police officers and narcotics investigators are united in opposition to legislation that would authorize the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

The adoption of this legislation will pose numerous problems for Minnesota's law enforcement officials and will endanger the public's safety.

If this proposal passes, federal law will still prohibit the possession, use and sale of marijuana. That will put Minnesota's law and law enforcement officers in direct conflict with our federal counterparts. One need only look at the situation in California, where marijuana has been legalized for medical use for some time, to see the extensive problems associated with the distribution of marijuana through hundreds of so-called "medical marijuana dispensaries," many of whom are purchasing marijuana-related drugs from organized criminals and the numerous so-called "patients" who are seeking marijuana for personal use without suffering from serious illness or disease.

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I was disappointed to read the Post-Bulletin's editorial opposing the medical marijuana bill ("Is Minnesota ready for marijuana as medicine?" April 24). As seems to frequently be the case in discussions of the issue, the editorial touched on numerous aspects but ignored the most relevant -- the seriously ill patients who would be most affected. The fact is that this legislation could dramatically improve my quality of life.

I was diagnosed with intra-abdominal desmoplastic small round-cell cancer, a sarcoma that forms on connective tissue in the abdomen. When I was diagnosed, there were only 80 known cases known in the world.

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