Firefighter union reacts to Winnipeg's overdose statistics Winnipeg firefighters and paramedics are responding to more overdose calls in 2016 than in the past five years, new data shows. From Jan. 1 to Nov.16, the city says the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service has received 1,593 calls related to overdoses and poisonings, which are tracked together. In 2015, the service had 1,556 of the same calls, compared to 1,328 back in 2014 and 1,269 in 2013. Municipal spokesperson Michelle Finley said the service only tracks the calls and does not specify which drug causes an overdose. [continues 438 words]
Education: New Drug and Alcohol Curriculum Aims to Help Students Make the Right Choices The province is hoping more students in Nova Scotia will learn to make responsible choices when it comes drugs and alcohol with the launch of a new drug education curriculum. Health minister Leo Glavine, joined by students and staff from Oxford School in Halifax, announced the new curriculum in the school's teen centre on Thursday. The curriculum was created in conjunction with the departments of Education and Early Childhood Development and Health and Wellness. [continues 290 words]
TUSCALOOSA - Of all the criminal cases in Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court last year, 1,135 were assigned to a jury trial. But with jury trials scheduled for only 15 weeks out of the year, there's only time and money to hold about two trials each of those weeks, said Tuscaloosa County presiding Circuit Judge Scott Donaldson. "That would take 56 years to try them all," he said. About half of the cases involve drug offenses, he said, and more than that have some relation to drugs. [continues 329 words]
TUSCALOOSA | After a year of investigating an interstate ring of drug traffickers, West Alabama Narcotics Task Force agents arrested two Texas truck drivers who were hauling more than standard cargo. The agents knew that when Alfredo Mendez, 40, and Jose Herrera, 26, stopped at the TA Truck Stop in Cottondale at 9 a.m. Aug. 13, 100 pounds of marijuana would be stashed among the car parts they were delivering to Huntsville. "I don't think that these two arrests will stop the influx of marijuana from this particular source. But it does increase our intelligence, and it makes them a little more wary about bringing it here," task force commander Jeff Snyder said. [continues 1238 words]
Meth Labs Multiply Faster Than Police Can Find Them In 1998, a grand total of one methamphetamine lab was seized in the state of Alabama. This year, the total may surpass 300, or nearly one a day. For the law enforcement officers on the front line of Alabama's war on meth, the battle starts with a scene like the one that unfolded at William Rufus Hill's house in Tuscaloosa a month ago. After a long surveillance, officers from the West Alabama Narcotics Task Force moved in on the house on a weekday afternoon in early July. [continues 1572 words]
Extra Duty TUSCALOOSA -- With two of their investigators on military leave, staff members in the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences' Northport laboratory are working harder to keep up with an already hefty caseload. The department's investigators examine crime scenes in 14 counties in western Alabama. Investigator Matt Dyer was activated a year and a half ago, and Investigator Mike Lee was activated in November. Lee is a military instructor and is training troops at Fort McClellan. The one remaining investigator, Charles James, could be called for duty at any time. His unit out of Hoover has been placed on alert. [continues 322 words]
TUSCALOOSA -- Pharmacist Jim Myers knows a phony prescription when he sees one. An unusually strong dosage prescribed to someone who looks perfectly healthy or an unfamiliar signature of a doctor he's known for years are signs that something could be wrong. Three or four times a month, someone will come into one of Myers' stores with a fake prescription, he said. The pharmacist will call a doctor to check it out, which often leads to a call to local police. [continues 388 words]
TUSCALOOSA - Thirty-eight bundles of cash were seized by authorities Monday after a man driving a rented van was pulled over for a traffic violation on Interstate 20/59 near the Tuscaloosa-Greene County line. The money was still being counted late Monday, and the amount had not been established, but Sheriff Ted Sexton said each bundle weighed between one and three pounds. It was the third cash seizure on the interstate in Tuscaloosa County this year. Monday's seizure began after a Tuscaloosa County sheriff's deputy stopped a man around 11 a.m. near the 58-mile marker. The man told the deputy he was traveling west from Georgia to Dallas. [continues 250 words]
TUSCALOOSA -- Alabama State Troopers have seized more than $1.3 million in cash from a woman they pulled over near the Greene County line Tuesday morning. The trooper stopped a woman driving southbound on Interstate 20/59 and obtained permission to search her truck. Alabama Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Dorris Teague said the woman was stopped for an unspecified traffic violation. The driver, whose name was not released, was questioned after officers found $1,340,105 in cash in the vehicle. She was released without being charged. [continues 134 words]
TUSCALOOSA - Facing 15 years in state prison on a felony drug charge, Greg Travis knew he had to change his ways - for good. A big step in that direction was his participation in the drug court program of Tuscaloosa County Community Corrections, which he completed with 19 other graduates Wednesday. "It took one year, one month and 19 days," he said. "It's been a hard struggle. But I knew I had to do whatever I had to do to stay out of prison." [continues 399 words]
TUSCALOOSA -- Sheriff's deputies seized $2.7 million during a traffic stop on Interstate 20/59 on Jan. 16, one of the largest cash seizures ever made in the state, Sheriff Ted Sexton said. Tuscaloosa County sheriff's deputies working with officers from the Villa Rica, Ga., police department on a traffic detail discovered the cash after stopping a car near mile marker 58 near the Greene County line. The money was found in luggage in the vehicle. The money was turned over to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the federal agency investigating the source of the money. [continues 310 words]
WASHINGTON, June 26 (UPI) -- The United States is losing the war on drugs because of the shortcomings and failures of current U.S. drug policy, says a recent report from a major think tank. U.S. policy, which is focused on interdiction and incarceration, has failed to reduce the availability of drugs, while forcing U.S. anti-drug institutions to watch helplessly as street prices of illegal substances mysteriously fell, said the report. The report's author Peter Reuter -- a drug policy analyst with the RAND Institute and the founder and former director of RAND's Drug Policy Research Center -- said that this failure occurred despite a more than threefold increase in allotted drug war spending, from $10 billion annually in the 1980s to $35 billion in the late 1990s. [continues 1097 words]
