For The Monitor Re "Bill aims to legalize marijuana use" (Monitor, Jan. 16): It won't happen - not with the mindset of our "leaders." The History Channel has shown and re-shown the story of marijuana and how it came to be illegal. Do congressmen ever watch TV (other than football)? Those who would rule us should be required to watch educational TV now and then and maybe read a book or two about the real world. Why is it, Mister Lawmaker, that you won't even allow medical researchers to study marijuana? What kind of evil do you think is in that flower anyway? [continues 220 words]
CONCORD - A move to decriminalize the use of marijuana tops the agenda as the New Hampshire Legislature begins to hear from the public on its 1,400 bills for the 2007 session. As usual, the finished fine print is coming out slowly for bills in part because the newly sworn-in lawmakers need to sign off on 995 pieces of legislation. As a result, the public hearings before House committees start slowly this week. Still, it's a safe bet the marijuana legislation in front of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee on Wednesday morning will spark plenty of debate. [continues 339 words]
They looked like ordinary suburban homes. In fact, police say, they were clandestine marijuana labs, each one hiding an intricate system of ventilation ducts, high-wattage lighting and enough stolen electricity to power a small high school. Last month's blockbuster pot bust, believed to be the largest in New Hampshire history, revealed a web of high-tech marijuana farms in upscale neighborhoods across southern New Hampshire. Police cracked the ring open last month, raiding 11 houses in a single day. [continues 896 words]
Until now, marijuana growing in New Hampshire has largely been a garden variety crime. The weather just isn't conducive to the high-intensity illegal agriculture that has drawn drug gangs to the national forests and parks of warmer states. But last week people woke up, and what they smelled wasn't roses. Law enforcement agencies seized 11 expensive homes in Andover, Pembroke, Concord, Canterbury, Hopkinton, Weare and other communities and confiscated 7,000 high-quality marijuana plants. The police called it the biggest drug bust in state history. [continues 504 words]
Key Points Background: Law enforcement agencies last week seized 11 expensive houses in New Hampshire that were being used to grow marijuana. Conclusion: These pot growing operations are disturbing because they show that organized crime has managed to gain a foothold in the Granite State. Until now, marijuana growing in New Hampshire has largely been a garden variety crime. The weather just isn't conducive to the high-intensity illegal agriculture that has drawn drug gangs to the national forests and parks of warmer states. But last week people woke up, and what they smelled wasn't roses. [continues 544 words]
CONCORD (AP) - A massive marijuana-growing enterprise involving about a dozen houses and thousands of plants worth tens of millions of dollars wasn't just the state's largest. State and federal law enforcement authorities say the bust also represents the movement south of a Canadian trend of sophisticated indoor growing operations working out of middle-to-affluent residential neighborhoods. "This is a trend we had been seeing in Canada for as long as I have been a U.S. attorney," Tom Colantuono, New Hampshire's federal prosecutor since 2001, said Thursday. "We were very concerned that this might move south across the border and the fact that it has is very disturbing." [continues 182 words]
State officials held a press conference in Stratham last week to talk about the efforts to combat the expansion of methamphetamine use in New Hampshire. They said they are at the front line of the battle, "doing everything possible to get a foothold on meth before it becomes a problem." On the same day at another press conference just miles away in Seabrook, it was announced police had made a bust netting the largest amount of crystal methamphetamine ever seized in New England. [continues 393 words]
SEABROOK - A drug bust in Seabrook has netted the largest cache of crystal methamphetamine ever seized in New England. The 12 pounds of crystal methamphetamine was produced in "super labs" in Mexico, said U.S. Attorney Thomas Colantuono on Thursday. It was brought from Mexico to Georgia to Seabrook for distribution in New England, an open market for methamphetamine, a highly addictive manufactured drug that gives a quick high. Drug Enforcement Administration officers and Seabrook police arrested two men in front of Lowe's on Route 1 on Oct. 24. The meth was allegedly hidden in their motor vehicle. [continues 366 words]
One of our most infamous contemporary laws is the 100-1 difference in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Under federal drug laws, prison sentences are usually tied to the quantity of drugs the defendant trafficked. For example, selling 5,000 grams of powder cocaine (about a briefcase full) gets a mandatory 10-year prison sentence, but so does selling only 50 grams of crack cocaine (the weight of a candy bar). Working for the House Judiciary Committee in 1986, I wrote the House bill that was the basis for that law. We made some terrible mistakes. [continues 672 words]
Just before Election Day, I fueled up my regular car, then the diesel. Two days before, I had ordered my next ton of corn for the corn stove. The price of feed corn had risen since summer by about 10 percent. The unleaded gasoline going into the car contained 10 percent ethanol derived from corn. Why was the price of gasoline so low compared to last year when the cost of a major component had risen? There are now two grades of whole corn: the corn that farmers feed livestock and stove corn. Stove corn isn't food-quality, has a higher btu output, has a little more cob content and is dustier. It costs less than feed corn. [continues 141 words]
This is not about the use of pot. But did Gov. Lynch authorize the National Guard to be called out to help confiscate and haul away the pot plants found in the home in Epsom (Monitor, Nov. 4)? I understand that 1,400 marijuana plants is a lot to haul away, no matter the size of them. However, the constitution stipulates that the National Guard shall be used to help the police only in case of natural disasters or to protect private property such as riots or mass lawlessness. [continues 66 words]
NORTH HAMPTON - North Hampton School students came to school wearing red from head to toe, and, no, they weren't trying to rush the holiday season. Students participated in Focus Day, the grand finale of National Red Ribbon Week, an anti-drug campaign held the last full week of October each year. Students and teachers were given a red ribbon wristband and everyone was encouraged to wear red on Thursday of that week to represent their commitment to a drug-free community. [continues 343 words]
Nearly 1,400 Marijuana Plants Found In the biggest marijuana bust in the state's history, the police found nearly 1,400 marijuana plants worth up to $7 million inside a vacant Epsom house Thursday. The police brought 1,396 plants out of the basement at 35 Woodcote Drive, the state police said. They also seized grow lights, tools, industrial fans and transformer boxes used to divert electricity to the house, the police said. Aside from the basement and closets full of equipment, the rest of the house was empty, said Sgt. Ellen Arcieri of the New Hampshire State Police. [continues 344 words]
KINGSTON -- Are Rockingham County and the state of New Hampshire losing the war on drugs? Nine panelists, with differing experiences in drug treatment, enforcement and surveillance, attempted to address that question on Friday at Sanborn Regional High School. Rather than giving a simple yes or no answer to a complex question, the public forum, attended by about 50 people, including six local state representatives and senators, focused on treatment as an underutilized but effective weapon in the ongoing battle. The keynote speaker, Dr. Nova Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), offered promising statistics and findings in a prerecorded video address. According to NIDA research, she said, drug addicts who receive treatment for their disease are seven times more likely to be drug-free after three years than those receiving no treatment. [continues 872 words]
Free Kits for Parents Seen As Preventing Abuse In a program thought to be the first in New Hampshire's Seacoast, the Exeter Police Department is providing free drug test kits to parents who want to know if their children are using illegal drugs. On Wednesday , the department made available 50 kits to test for alcohol, marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine, methamphetamine, and opiates through simple saliva or urine tests. The results are available in minutes. "We're giving parents another tool they can use to fight drug abuse before it becomes a problem," Exeter Police Chief Richard Kane said last week. [continues 546 words]
Gayle Brady didn't hesitate to take her daughter to the Kingston police station for a drug test. She had an open communication with her daughter, Caitlyn, who felt comfortable enough to talk to her mom about the drugs she had tried. So when the 18-year-old died of a heroin overdose in March, Gayle was in shock. "I was under the impression that things were starting to change," Gayle said. "I tried to be on top of everything that was going on. I thought I could always be one step ahead of her. [continues 832 words]
The use of methamphetamine is spreading like a California wildfire eastward across the United States, but officials here in New Hampshire are working hard to dig a trench to keep the flames of this epidemic at bay. Members of the state Department of Health and Human Services, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, the U.S. Attorney's office, the state attorney general's staff, members of state and local law enforcement, and educators are teaming up with local businesses in hopes of keeping this menacing drug problem from reaching the epic proportions it has in other parts of the country. [continues 382 words]
Plymouth - Community leaders from the Upper Valley and throughout Grafton County heard how a drug court could make a difference in turning around the lives of drug addicts, their families and citizens who are victimized by drug-related crimes. "With this we have a good chance to change the paradigm so we don't see as much recidivism," said Grafton County Superior Court Judge Jean Burling, who attended a luncheon yesterday and heard from a New Jersey prosecutor and a drug defendant whose life was changed by the Orange County drug court program. [continues 665 words]
"I lost kids I went to high school with; kids from Portsmouth High, Dover High, Kittery are dead. Most of my friends ... of the ones close to me, six." Those are the words of a 30-year-old man from Portsmouth. His friends were not killed in a war or in traffic accidents. They were killed by heroin. And Steve (not his real name), says the use of heroin has not declined. If anything, it has gotten worse. Rockingham County Attorney Jim Reams agrees. It can probably be found at every high school in the Seacoast, he said. [continues 565 words]
Inside New Hampshire
