Aristotle, by thought alone, concluded that women have fewer teeth than men. Don't make the same mistake about marijuana intoxication. Instead of just thinking, look at data and studies. You'll conclude that Sack's cartoon was on target. St. Paul [end]
Before drug-testing welfare recipients ("Welfare drug tests challenged" Jan. 30), Minnesota might want to look at Florida's experience. Before the law was struck down, Florida tested 4,086 applicants, and 108 (2.6 percent) failed. Before Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Trey Radel resigned this week for cocaine possession, at least one out of 17 Florida Republicans in the U.S. House bought cocaine (6 percent). The odds favor testing House Republicans rather than welfare recipients. JOHN SHERMAN, Moorhead, Minn. [end]
Some county officials insist the drug-testing mandate applies to such a tiny sliver of the welfare population that it's not worth the cost to administer. One legislator says that all truck drivers have to be drug-tested to keep their commercial driver's licenses. Note that word -"all." Is it worth it then, perhaps, to test all welfare recipients instead of a "tiny sliver"? Or, to use the administration cost viewpoint more broadly, why don't we tell our police agencies to not investigate burglaries and thefts using well-paid officers and detectives and prosecutors, and instead just subsidize victims for their losses? Given the millions of people in just the metro area and the probable fact that a "tiny sliver" or so are robbed or burgled, it sure seems to make sense, on a cost basis, not to pursue violators of the public peace and security. Sounds good to me, but then again, I just got off the potato boat. MIKE AUSPOS, Ramsey [end]
A Jan. 3 commentary was headlined "Marijuana use dulls the mind" and argued that marijuana is a gateway drug as well. Both of those statements are also true for alcohol, especially in regard to young users, and alcohol is a legal drug for adults. I'm neither in favor of nor opposed to marijuana legalization. I do know this, though: If we had spent as much money and time and energy on eliminating poverty and making education better as we have on trying to stop the use of marijuana (including what we've spent on drug agencies, prisons and housing prisoners, and on drug enforcement agencies) we would've greatly reduced the pockets of poverty in our country. Not only that, but in doing so we would most probably have done a better job of reducing drug use and or crime. [continues 61 words]
Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom should stick to his role: enforcing, not writing, the law ("Backstrom firmly against medical use of marijuana," Dec. 1) Perhaps his most insulting claim is that marijuana is not medicine. While it's true that marijuana has not gone through the Federal Drug Administration approval process, that's due to federal obstruction of research, not its lack of medicinal value. Studies have shown marijuana is effective at treating several debilitating conditions, including wasting, intense nausea and intractable pain. [continues 105 words]
County Attorney Says It Would Be a Mistake for Minnesota to Legalize Marijuana for Medical Use. Expecting some state legislators to try again next year to legalize marijuana for medical uses, Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom has reaffirmed his position against it. Backstrom, joined by Dakota County Sheriff Dave Bellows, held a forum and a news conference in West St. Paul Nov. 20 to oppose the legalization of marijuana for medical use as a danger to public health and safety. "Minnesota law enforcement officers and prosecutors have significant empathy for anyone suffering the ill effects of the serious medical diseases and conditions that 'medical' marijuana legislation is claimed to be needed for, but we also experience on a daily basis the pain and suffering that is directly and indirectly attributable to the illegal cultivation, distribution and possession of marijuana," Backstrom said. [continues 486 words]
Rich Stanek's priorities are wrong. Some 1,300 smokers died today because of cigarettes. Some 225 alcohol drinkers died today because of the alcohol or alcohol related accidents. It's likely that no one died today because of marijuana use. Let's get our priorities straight and quit spending more than $30,000 a year to lock up some marijuana offenders. The only two entities that benefit from outlawing marijuana are the drug dealers and the prison systems. RICHARD BREITMAN, Minneapolis [end]
I have to chuckle a little, then shake my head in amazement at the letters sent in by people who think they know the drug world better than the people who work in it and fight against it, in this case Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek ("Lax marijuana enforcement puts us on a dangerous road," Sept. 18). The folks who wrote in and explained how legalizing marijuana would cut down on crime (Readers Write, Sept. 20) reminded me of a street person going into a bakery and explaining how dough rises to the baker. Some people just don't have a clue and need to leave this area to the experts. MARILYN MANGAN, Mound [end]
At Least It Was for Me, Until It Was Put Out of Reach. Though Minnesota has proven to be a progressive state, in the area of medical marijuana legalization it remains anchored in the past. I have been an MS sufferer for 35 years, and have used medical MJ for more than 20 - until this December past, when I became institutionalized. Its benefits are now forbidden to me. It offered me relief from pain, inflammation, stress, cramps and insomnia, and since I have stopped using it, my pain level has increased from 2 to 6, along with the severity of other symptoms that make my challenging life much less bearable. I have had no withdrawals or ill effects, nor have I been desirous of taking even stronger forbidden substances since stopping its use. Of course, I am able to use legal chemical painkillers (which have side effects and are much less effective) and one Valium in the evening for cramps. [continues 558 words]
In August, Attorney General Eric Holder signaled a striking change in federal narcotics policy. For the first time in decades, the Department of Justice took concrete steps to reduce the use of long-term prison sentences in the fight against illegal drugs. Holder seems to really believe in the cause, too; in an Aug. 12 speech to the American Bar Association, he asserted that "widespread incarceration at the federal, state, and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable." The bare fact that the attorney general of the United States is taking such a strong position would be more remarkable but for the fact that several states have already acted to reduce the long-term incarceration of nonviolent narcotics defendants. Even Rick Perry's Texas has already done the hard work of thinning the ranks of low-level drug offenders in Lone Star State prisons. [continues 681 words]
You'll see plenty of politicians, parties and politics at the Minnesota State Fair. But keep walking up Cosgrove Street and you'll find the one fairground exhibit that tries to strip the partisanship out of politics to give visitors a bipartisan glimpse of the people in the People's House. At side-by-side House and Senate exhibits in the fair's Education Building, visitors can touch a crumbling chunk of the Capitol facade; pose for a picture, gavel in hand, behind a model of the speaker of the House's podium; take a poll; and meet a lawmaker. [continues 530 words]
Prosecutors Will Not File Criminal Charges Because the Hutchinson Officer Made the Disclosure With Immunity From Prosecution. A Hutchinson police officer admitted to superiors last fall that he gave people marijuana as part of a state training exercise in Minneapolis, a month after prosecutors declared they lacked sufficient evidence to charge him. The officer, Karl Willers, also told his department that between 30 and 40 percent of his training class distributed narcotics in order to perform observations, and that a coordinator of the program told them to get rid of the drugs after the allegations went public, according to a Hutchinson investigative report obtained through an open records request. [continues 1011 words]
As one who spent more than 20 years in law enforcement fighting the "drug war," I can attest to its absurd, futile and tragic nature. Tragic, in that many wonderful youngsters are irrevocably harmed by our reactionary punishment of recreational marijuana use. We'll never know how many people missed out on well-deserved careers, fell into severe depression or harmed themselves because of the impact of a minor infraction of experimenting with an innocuous drug. Further, as noted in the commentary, prescription drugs kill far more people than do cocaine and heroin combined. THOMAS EVANS, Bemidji, Minn. [end]
(In which we ponder the nanny state and harm done.) Minnesota legislators seem poised to follow the lead of 18 other states by legalizing medicinal marijuana in the next legislative session. While the effort is primarily a Democratic one, there is Republican support as well. Nevertheless, lawmakers are up against the same obstacle medical marijuana faced in 2009 - a reluctant governor. Mark Dayton remains adamant, as was Tim Pawlenty before him, about deferring to a powerful state interest whose support most politicians covet: law enforcement. Indeed, the governor's spokesperson declared in the waning days of the 2013 session that Dayton won't support any legislation on the issue so long as groups like the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association oppose it. [continues 1271 words]
Medical marijuana was not among the alternative pain relief methods mentioned in the last Sunday's article ("For those in pain, changes fuel fears," June 23). Why hasn't this gotten off the ground in Minnesota? It does what it's supposed to do - relieve pain - with much fewer adverse effects than oxycodone or other narcotics. It should be considered alongside other nonpharmacological interventions, because it works. Minnesota needs to catch up with the several states giving compassionate options to the chronically ill. Northfield, Minn. [end]
Deaths and hospital admissions linked to meth are climbing. With heroin and other opiate use remaining at what experts call alarmingly high levels, there's new cause for concern: Methamphetamine is back. The resurgence of the dangerous, addictive meth is described in a new report on drug trends in the Twin Cities by Carol Falkowksi, a private consultant and former drug abuse strategy czar for Minnesota. Meth overdose deaths rose from 10 to 21 from 2011 to 2012 in Ramsey and Hennepin counties alone, there are more emergency-room admissions and the number of meth labs is beginning to creep up again after state and federal efforts to shutter them a half-dozen years ago, she said. [continues 417 words]
Why would Gov. Mark Dayton listen to the police over the medical community when considering the value of medical marijuana? ("Medical marijuana supporters push for legalization," May 3.) A front-page story the same day noted that suicide deaths have risen sharply among baby boomers because we have such easy access to prescription pain killers, drugs that are easy to take in a large enough amount to kill us. Are we outlawing them because they kill people? Heck, no, even though they are widely abused by all age groups, including young people. [continues 86 words]
It Won't Happen This Session, but Bipartisan Effort Looks to the Next. Legislators are disagreeing on a lot of big issues, but they found a bit of common ground Thursday - medical marijuana. It's too late to push a bill through this session, but about 40 legislators in both parties, including more than a dozen committee chairmen, sent a strong signal that they want to add Minnesota to the 18 states where marijuana can be legally prescribed. Legislators passed the legalization of medical marijuana in 2009, but were stopped by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who vetoed the bill. [continues 592 words]
This does not mean giving the thumbs-up to drug use. There can be no doubt that recreational drug use can ruin lives. However, a felony conviction can be even more devastating. Does anyone think jailing a father who responsibly uses marijuana does him, his economic prospects, or his family any good? The president of the United States is a former recreational marijuana user, even publicly thanking his pot-smoking buddies in his high school yearbook. Does anyone think that the course of Barack Obama's life would have been improved by an arrest when he was young? [continues 731 words]
Kersten criticizes lawyers for considering the complexities. But why shouldn't they? Katherine Kersten did her own dance around the truth in "Of race, crime statistics and victimhood" (April 7). In her rush to expose a liberal-lawyer conspiracy, she did exactly what she accuses others of doing. She approached a highly complex issue with simplistic jargon such as "the new victim class," failed to recognize the irrefutability of some of the facts and glossed over an issue that has profound implications for all of us and how we live together. [continues 447 words]
The Twin Cities Legal Community Is Dancing Around the Truth Sometimes you just can't make this stuff up. The latest cause celebre for prominent lawyers and judges in Minneapolis is the rights of a new, disenfranchised class of victims who, we're told, can't vote, serve on juries, or - in some cases - live in public housing. Who's this new victim class? Murderers, robbers, rapists, and dealers and users of illegal drugs - in short, convicted felons. People incarcerated for felonies are disproportionately black, the argument goes, so laws that deprive felons of certain civil rights that law-abiding citizens enjoy are the racist equivalent of poll taxes in the Jim Crow South. [continues 716 words]
A Dec. 31 article ("Drugs and thugs slide down priority scale") reported that criminal prosecutions for drug crimes have dropped significantly at the U.S. Attorney's office in Minneapolis under the leadership of B. Todd Jones. There are those, apparently, who are concerned about this, and to them and others, I would suggest a book: Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow." Alexander argues convincingly that the new Jim Crow is the mass incarceration of black and Latino men convicted of drug crimes. She suggests that the war on drugs initiated during the Reagan administration unfairly and disproportionately targets these men. She supports her conclusions with significant data. A few examples: 1) the large increase in the prison populations in the last 20 years is primarily due to drug arrests; 2) the overwhelming percentage of arrests are for possession, with few of the dealers being charged, and 3) the vast majority of drug users are white, but the vast majority of those in prison are black or Latino. [continues 54 words]
U.S. Attorney Says Office Is Focused On Bigger, More Time-Consuming Crimes. Criminal prosecutions have dropped dramatically at the U.S. Attorney's office in Minneapolis under the leadership of B. Todd Jones, rankling some in law enforcement. A Star Tribune analysis of federal prosecutions in Minnesota in the past six fiscal years shows that significantly fewer people are being charged -- especially those involved in drug crimes. Drug suspects made up 60 percent of the defendants charged under former U.S. Attorneys Thomas Heffelfinger and Rachel Paulose in 2006. Under Jones they account for just 36 percent, and illustrate a major shift in the office's priorities. [continues 825 words]
Suspicions Over A Late-night Landing At The Anoka County Airport Set Off An Investigation That Led To Arrests And The Breakup Of A California-to-minnesota Drug Ring. Federal agents swung open the doors of the Mooney M20 minutes after it taxied to a stop at 3:30 a.m. on the darkened runway at the Anoka County Airport. Two nervous pilots were in the cockpit, several large hockey bags filled the cabin. But the pungent aroma wasn't sweaty pads and skates. [continues 659 words]
In his July 24 column ("Drug war is a failure, so let's experiment"), Jason Lewis quotes me as saying that "in the grand scheme, it [the 'war on drugs'] has not been successful." I have long believed that we cannot simply arrest our way out of our drug problem. The "war on drugs" rhetoric represents an overly simplistic approach to a complex public health and public safety problem. However, it is just as simplistic -- and just as misguided -- to think that decriminalization is the solution to America's drug problem. Lewis refers to the Global Commission on Drug Policy, an advocacy group that recently called for the decriminalization of all illegal drugs. [continues 148 words]
Without being rash, can we at least appraise the impact of prohibition? Imagine a nightmare in which terrorists brutally murder 40,000 people in just five years. Now imagine that their base of operations is not across the globe, but directly adjacent to the United States. No doubt, hearing of such a thing, many of my conservative colleagues would be demanding a massive mobilization against the latest evils of Islamofacism. But the real-life killers I have in mind, who revel in decapitating their victims (Al Capone's got nothing on these guys), aren't Muslim fanatics. They're narco-terrorists exploiting Mexico's failed war on drugs. [continues 672 words]
Inadequate pain treatment is a public health crisis, too. The latest battle in the war on drugs must not create a new and innocent group of victims -- patients imprisoned by their own pain because doctors are unwilling or unable to prescribe the powerful pain medications that they need. That is the risk of a well-intentioned but potentially detrimental push by the Obama administration this week to rein in abuse of prescription painkillers such as oxycodone, morphine and methadone. Federal drug enforcement officials rightly called attention to the scourge of crime and addiction that street use of opioid drugs cause. This is a public health crisis. [continues 449 words]
My three-step solution to solving our budget woes: 1)Tax the church. Religion is a business; let's tax it like one. 2) Legalize marijuana and save money by no longer arresting people for its use. How have we not learned our lesson from Prohibition? Such bans flat-out don't work and are a waste of taxpayer dollars. 3) Insist on term limits for everyone to stop the waste of dollars caused by partisan politics. I firmly believe that if we take these three steps, we might get this country back on the right track. Brett Harris, Bloomington [end]
The Number Of Pre-Employment Drug Screenings Is On The Rise. It May Signal Businesses Are Set To Do More Hiring. Or Maybe Not. Searching for signs of an improving economy, analysts have scratched their heads over statistics and surveyed the hearts of consumers. Now comes another hopeful indicator -- the bladders of potential hires. Pre-employment drug tests are rising significantly. Drug test companies in the Minneapolis area say numbers of such exams for new hires have doubled, or in one case, increased more than 500 percent, in the last year. [continues 528 words]
Having just returned from California and Colorado, then reading "Almost an epidemic" (July 11), about the cannabis caravans in Montana where physicians go on the road issuing marijuana cards at the rate of 150 a day, this aging hippie is hoping Minnesota does not join in the medical-marijuana mirage. As a cancer survivor, I had thought that medical marijuana was a good idea. I may yet be one of those who could legitimately use it for medical reasons. But if it were really a medical drug, I should be able to have my prescription filled at my normal pharmacy. Instead, what I saw in California and Colorado were seedy shops with hand-painted signs as subtle as "Dr. Reefer." Some storefronts shared billboard space with their recommended source of a doctor willing to issue a quick prescription for any type of pain -- sometimes by webcam. [continues 62 words]
The brother of Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan pleaded guilty Tuesday to methamphetamine and marijuana charges. Paul J. Dolan, 53, a U.S. Postal Service mail carrier, was charged in Ramsey County District Court with possessing methamphetamine and trafficking in marijuana, both fifth-degree felonies, after an undercover camera recorded him using drugs while on his St. Paul route. The marijuana charge stemmed from a search of his Minneapolis home that uncovered a marijuana growing operation in his basement. Ramsey County prosecuted both cases due to Tim Dolan's role as police chief. Paul Gustafson, a county attorney's office spokesman, said that prosecutors struck no deal on jail or prison time. Dolan is to be sentenced Feb. 1. [end]
Attorney General Eric Holder Is Right to Put This at the Top of His Reform List. We hope Congress was listening Wednesday when the nation's top prosecutor, Attorney General Eric Holder, told the Senate: "There are few areas of the law that cry out for reform more than federal cocaine sentencing policy." Pending legislation in both houses of Congress would eliminate the so-called "100-to-1" ratio between crack and powder cocaine. That ratio means that offenders get a five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence for a crime involving 5 grams of crack -- but that it takes a hundred times that amount (500 grams) of powder cocaine to trigger the same prison term. Fifty grams of crack -- or 5,000 grams of powder cocaine -- garners a 10-year mandatory minimum. [continues 327 words]
Syringe Exchanges Are About the Most Logical Thing We Could Do to Stop HIV, but Politics Isn't Logical. The House of Representatives showed the courage of President Obama's convictions on the needle exchange issue. Candidate Obama vowed repeatedly to end the ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs -- a 21-year-old policy that blocks federal dollars from supporting the most effective, cost-efficient HIV prevention tool ever dreamed up. President Obama, however, retained the ban in his 2010 budget proposal -- punting the issue to Congress. [continues 419 words]
Short Of Being Asked To Undress, Kids In School Have Few Privacy Protections. Public schools are filled with eager, fresh-faced youngsters, and prisons contain many rough-looking adults with uninviting personalities. But put aside that difference and you find some important similarities between the two places -- government-run facilities where individuals are held for a specific number of years without their consent, at the mercy of their custodians. For years, the Supreme Court has been doing its best to further blur the distinction by giving public-school officials the same powers as the warden of San Quentin. So it was a mild surprise last week to learn there are some abridgments of freedom and invasions of privacy inflicted on children that the justices will not tolerate. [continues 611 words]
So Gov. Tim Pawlenty will veto medical marijuana and stand with law enforcement in opposition to its use. Of course, the only ones who profit from prohibition and the drug war are the gangsters and the cops. If you want to put the gangs out of business, take the business out of the gangs. The governor wants to keep the business within his own gang, the cops. But the politicians can't keep marijuana out of the hands of teenagers and the gangs. Pawlenty can't keep reefer out of the hands of respectable middle-class people who smoke it when they think nobody's looking. Perhaps the only ones who Pawlenty can withhold marijuana from are the sick, suffering and dying. He'll make sure they can't get their medicine. That ought to tell you what message he sends. CHRIS WRIGHT, EDINA [end]
If We Wish For Our Laws To Prevent Harm, They Need To Be Based On Evidence. Our nation is having the most intense debate about our marijuana laws in more a generation -- one that Minnesotans recently saw play out in full force as legislators and Gov. Tim Pawlenty debated medical marijuana. As one who has pushed for just such a debate, I'm delighted, but as I and other Marijuana Policy Project staffers have engaged with journalists and policymakers lately, it's become clear that this debate is being hobbled by a series of myths. [continues 652 words]
Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed an emotionally charged proposal late Friday to allow terminally ill patients to use marijuana for medical purposes, but signed into law a plan to disburse hundreds of millions of dollars from the Legacy Amendment passed by Minnesotans last year. Four days after the Legislature ended with a stormy adjournment, the governor issued five vetoes Friday night on issues from election law to mortgage-foreclosure proceedings. He also signed a bill late Thursday that allows police to pull over drivers solely because they or their passengers are not wearing seat belts. Currently, officers must spot another traffic offense before they can stop a vehicle and ticket someone for not being strapped in. The new law is effective June 9, and carries a $25 fine. [continues 566 words]
Pot Use Would Only Be for the Terminally Ill. A bill that permits terminally ill patients to use marijuana to ease their pain cleared the House and Senate on Monday night, a measure significantly narrowed from an earlier version that would have allowed any suffering patient, terminal or not, to use the drug for medical purposes. The House passed the bill, 70-64, a victory for supporters who have long worked to get medical marijuana legalized in Minnesota, but one not nearly big enough to override the likely veto by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. [continues 306 words]
Lingering Doubts About the Potential for Abuse Could Block the Bill in the House or Draw a Pawlenty Veto. After a debate pitting compassion for those suffering from the pain of cancer or HIV-AIDS against concerns about abuse and violence from expanded availability of a "gateway drug," the Minnesota Senate gave tentative approval Wednesday to the use of marijuana for medical purposes in the state. The 36-28 vote came despite questions about whether the measure fully defines who would be eligible and whether it provides proper safeguards against potential abuse. [continues 224 words]
This Is a Legislative, Not Constitutional, Decision. The effort to allow marijuana's legal use by seriously ill Minnesotans isn't new at the Capitol, or to these pages. Proponents have been making their case since at least 1992, with this newspaper's support. But the accounts of disease victims and their loved ones about the drug's benefits pack an emotional punch that's still fresh. No one could listen to Joni Whiting of Jordan tell legislators on March 24 of her late daughter's facial melanoma misery, relieved by no drug other than marijuana, and not be moved. [continues 499 words]
A bill that would legalize the medical use of marijuana in Minnesota continues to work its way through the state Legislature, with a Senate hearing on it set for today. The Senate Finance Committee scheduled a hearing on the bill this morning. The bill, gaining support among legislators but adamantly opposed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty, already has been approved by three other Senate committees. In the past, the bill has gotten as far as winning approval by the full Senate in 2007, but has never reached Pawlenty's desk. [continues 96 words]
Police Officers Say The State's Current Plan Would 'Create Significant Harm.' Burnsville Mayor Elizabeth Kautz and the City Council are supporting efforts by the Police Department to rework a bill under consideration in the Legislature that would make legal the use of marijuana for medical reasons. Kautz, who called the current offering "not a very good bill," made her support known after a March 10 presentation by Police Chief Bob Hawkins and Capt. Eric Werner at a council work session, during which police warned that the bill would lead to increased illegal behavior. [continues 435 words]
The Smuggling (Of Drugs And People) From Mexico Reverberates In Arizona. PHOENIX - X-Caliber, a gun store in a nondescript neighborhood in this city's northern section, has become embroiled in Mexico's turmoil. The chaos there is the result of the Mexican government's decision to wage war against rampant drug cartels that are fighting mostly against each other but also against the portions of Mexican law enforcement they have not corrupted. Operating in that nation's north, they are serving this nation's appetite for illegal narcotics and illegal immigrants. [continues 1012 words]
Experience shows that it can give people suffering illness the strength to live their lives. That should not be against the law. For the past several years, Minnesota lawmakers -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- have worked hard to pass sensible, compassionate legislation to protect seriously ill patients from arrest for using medical marijuana when their doctors recommend it. It's encouraging that they've come so close in the past, but for many Minnesotans, time is running out. I know. It's already too late for Jane Schmidt -- my mom -- whom I lost last year after a four-year battle with cancer. She fought bravely, even when the only drug that relieved her pain and allowed her to function -- medical marijuana -- also made her a criminal. [continues 446 words]
Backers of medical marijuana want the face of Stephanie Whiting-Shadinger to be one of those Minnesota lawmakers remember as debate resumes at the State Capitol on allowing some patients to use the now-illegal drug. Whiting-Shadinger died in 2003 at age 26, suffering from malignant melanoma that required experimental treatments, chemotherapy and 10 surgeries. Daily doses of pain killers failed to relieve her misery. Joni Whiting, a suburban grandma from Jordan, will be testifying today in a Senate committee that she reluctantly abandoned her anti-drug sentiments and went along with her daughter smoking marijuana in her final days. And she's glad she did. [continues 530 words]
On New Year's Eve, the Taliban scored a major tactical military as well as political victory through killing members of the security force of Abdul Salam, the commander of Musa Qala, a city in southern Afghanistan long contested by insurgent and NATO forces. The daring raid has captured attention and headlines. A killing squad of approximately 30 fighters attacked Mullah Salam's house. They lost two men, and the Taliban claims as many as 32 members of the security force were killed. The government states the total lost is 20. The killers missed Salam, who was away working at his office. [continues 528 words]
James Rothenberger of Minneapolis, who served on the faculty of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, was a popular teacher who taught a broad range of courses while facing serious illness for 23 years. During his career, he endured two kidney transplants, but still taught more than 100,000 university students. Rothenberger, 61, died Dec. 8 in Minneapolis of complications from kidney disease and an infection. He grew up in Deephaven and graduated from high school in Rochester, N.Y. In 1969, he earned a bachelor's degree in political science at the University of Minnesota. [continues 417 words]
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. [continues 137 words]
Pot -- or not pot. That seems to be the question. Two North Dakota farmers on Wednesday took their battle to grow industrial hemp to the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Paul, where their attorney argued that hemp is so distinct from marijuana that it should not be subject to federal regulation. At stake, say hemp sellers and would-be farmers, is a potentially booming commodity that would help U.S. growers and consumers alike. "I get real excited about it because of our economic times. It's a crop that would be very, very lucrative," said Lynn Gordon, owner of the French Meadow Bakery, who attended oral arguments at the U.S. Courthouse in St. Paul. French Meadow makes Healthy Hemp bread, muffins and bagels -- all big sellers, Gordon said -- but must buy its hemp from Canada. [continues 650 words]
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. [continues 596 words]
