The U.S. election didn't produce a blue wave or a red wave, but some are celebrating a green wave as voters in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota approved the legalization of recreational marijuana. Meanwhile, Oregonians decriminalized the possession of small amounts of harder drugs, including cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines. "Drugs, once thought to be the scourge of a healthy society, are getting public recognition as a part of American life," the New York Times gushed. In reality, drugs are very much a scourge, particularly in the lives of young children. In 2019 parental substance abuse was listed as a cause for a child's removal to foster care 38% of the time, a share that has risen steadily in the past decade. Experts suggest this is an underestimate and the real number may be up to 80%. [continues 566 words]
Mom guilt is here to stay. The stress of trying to be a calm, nurturing parent while also trying to keep our jobs, stay on top of school notices and remain married isn't going away. Not to mention the feeling that we're doing none of them particularly well. But that won't stop some people from trying anything. Author Ayelet Waldman, for instance, tried LSD. In her new book, "A Really Good Day," she documents her experiment with "microdosing," taking very small quantities of LSD -- enough to make you calmer, more aware of your environment, more able to focus on your work, but without all those wacky hallucinations. [continues 684 words]
Commissioner Is Open to a Ballot Question but Suspects a Ban Is Unlikely. Legal recreational marijuana and a low cost of living have drawn growers, sellers and users to the Pueblo area, but a group of residents hopes to change that. Citizens for a Healthy Pueblo submitted petitions to the county and state that, if approved, will place measures to ban commercial cultivation and sales of recreational marijuana in the city and county of Pueblo in November. "We've had this for almost 2 1/2 years, we see what it looks like, and we don't want it for our community," said Charlene Graham, the group's chairwoman. [continues 201 words]
It's Not the Well-Off Who'll Pay LAST week, the board of The Fontaine, a luxury Upper East Side co-op, sued a resident over what it alleges is a constant, overwhelming smell of marijuana wafting from his apartment. This may just be a glimpse of our future. After all, Colorado and Washington state voters just passed ballot initiatives to allow state-regulated marijuana sales. And Gov. Cuomo in his State of the State Address just suggested that pot possession shouldn't be illegal. [continues 607 words]
Holder Says Federal Agents Have Other Priorities and That Only Certain Cases Would Merit Action. WASHINGTON - Rep. Jared Polis on Thursday quizzed Attorney General Eric Holder about federal enforcement of marijuana laws in states such as Colorado, which have approved it for medical use and are seeing a growing number of dispensaries. In his first appearance as a new member of the House Judiciary Committee, the Boulder Democrat, who recently held a "coffee with your congressman" event at a coffee shop adjoining a dispensary in Nederland, quizzed Holder about comments from a federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent suggesting the Justice Department was planning to raid dispensaries in Colorado. [continues 293 words]
The column by Michael Fitzgerald on a legal marijuana dispensary or drug cartels (Dec. 20) raised important issues. The importance of Stockton having a legal medical marijuana dispensary and having proper control over it. Most people have known someone with terminal cancer, or a similar illness. Even with powerful prescription drugs, such as morphine, to help control the discomfort of the illness they can bring with them negative side effects. Medical marijuana is another valuable tool that physicians need to have available to prescribe to patients with special circumstances. [continues 132 words]
I've been a common pot smoker for more than 50 years -- most of my life. It's caused me some trouble a time or two, but only because it's illegal. It shouldn't be. During these past 50 years, I have met and known many people who share that opinion. A few behaved badly and drew attention to themselves. These rare exceptions give the rest of us a tarnished name in many circles. I've met pot smokers who are some of the finest people anyone could ever wish to know, from wealthy humanitarians to people who have next to nothing but are happy to share it. Every one of them lives by the Golden Rule. [continues 105 words]
It comes as no surprise to me that many prescription and even over-the-counter drugs are dangerous, and that "adverse drug events" have escalated dramatically during the past decade ("Prescription 'adverse events' mount, despite oversight," Sept. 11 Eagle). According to the article, the drugs most often linked to serious problems, including deaths, are from two categories: those that work primarily on the immune system, such as drugs used for diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS and Crohn's disease; and pain relievers, both prescription and nonprescription, commonly used for degenerative disk disease, osteoarthritis and many other causes of chronic pain. [continues 61 words]
Regarding "Morrison backs ban on drug paraphernalia" (Feb. 1 Eagle): Why throw more public resources into a useless effort? The ban proposed by the Wichita NAACP and supported by Attorney General Paul Morrison would not only be very costly but completely ineffective. As almost any middle school student knows, countless everyday items can be utilized as drug paraphernalia. Are we going to outlaw toilet tissue and canned beverages, for instance? The paper tube from a roll of toilet tissue and an empty beverage can are but two common items that can easily be modified to serve as pipes for the smoking of a variety of drugs. If a person wants to use illicit drugs, that person will find a way. The lack of conventional paraphernalia is no deterrent to the determined drug abuser. For the sake of all Kansans, please let our legislators concentrate on more meaningful issues. C.A. Riley, Wichita [end]
State officials cannot explain surge but say many schools fighting crime Tennessee students committed more drug offenses last year than all other serious offenses put together. The number of times students were caught using, selling or carrying drugs in schools statewide shot up by 502 to a record 2,793 in a school year. They made up nearly 67% of the 4,196 zero-tolerance offenses - those serious enough to warrant expulsion or transfer to an alternative school - reported in 2003-04. [continues 613 words]
More Directed To Alternative Schools For Classes, Counsel Under Tennessee's zero-tolerance policy, any student caught using, selling or carrying drugs at school can be kicked out for a year. But many aren't. Instead, a growing number of offenders are being sent to alternative schools, where they can get back on track academically and get extra help for other problems. It's an option that many districts, including Metro, find more appealing than putting a student out on the streets. [continues 485 words]
Almost half of the Tennessee high school students responding to a random poll say they've smoked marijuana, and 12% of them admit they tried it before their 13th birthday. Fewer than 5% say they've snorted cocaine, shot up with heroine, sniffed glue or inhaled fumes from paints or sprays to get high, a statewide youth survey shows. Slightly more say they've experimented with either Ecstasy or methamphetamines or used steroid pills or shots without a doctor's prescription. [continues 269 words]
Zero-Tolerance Incidents Up 10.8% In State The number of times Tennessee students attacked their teachers or took drugs, guns or other weapons to school has gone up 10.8% since the 1999-2000 school year, a new state report shows. Zero-tolerance offenses - those serious enough to carry mandatory suspensions - grew from 3,651 incidents in 1999-2000 to 4,047 in 2001-02, while the total number of students statewide increased by less than 1%, the report says. [continues 685 words]
In an effort to cut off the proliferation of grow ops and meth labs in Pitt Meadows, council is considering a bylaw allowing them to send a bill to the owners of the problem properties. "According to the police, illegal activity is increasing in Pitt Meadows and seriously impacts both the safety and integrity of our municipality," reads a staff report submitted to councillors on Tuesday. "These operations not only tax limited resources, but wastes valuable time of firefighters, police officers and municipal staff that could have been used on other proactive initiatives throughout the district." [continues 310 words]
Media reports have estimated the state's current budget deficit to be $255 million. A newly released report by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco reveals that taxpayers spend $21,000 per inmate per year for incarceration. In lieu of incarceration, substance-abuse treatment for drug offenders would cost around $2,500 per individual per year. This is a difference of $18,500. We were unable to find statistics on the number of nonviolent offenders currently in Kansas prisons, but the national total is more than 1.2 million, which averages out to 24,000 nonviolent inmates per state. Saving $18,500 per inmate would save a total of $444 million for Kansas. By releasing our nonviolent offenders, Kansas could save enough to eliminate our huge deficit and be about $189 million in the black. Wichita [end]
As more and more grow operations are busted in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, and more residential homes are used to raise marijuana for resale, real estate agents are stepping up with a plan to educate their ranks on the dangers of reselling these grow houses. Sometimes it's not as simple as walking into a house and detecting the distinctly-pungent aroma of marijuana, and the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board have joined forces to help realtors deal with a growing incidence of grow ops in this country's residential real estate. [continues 542 words]
Buster, A Dog Trained To Sniff Out Narcotics, Is One Of The Family At Nixa High School. NIXA - As Nixa High School Officer Brian Loveland walks the hallways, students often ignore him and lavish attention on Buster. The 3I-year-old black Labrador laps it up unabashedly, playfully circling Loveland and wagging his tail. "He's a very friendly dog," said senior J.P. Szesny, 19, who stopped to hug Buster Wednesday at Nixa's 1,100-student high school. "It's not unusual for us to go up and pet him." [continues 623 words]
Principal: Five Eighth-Graders At Hickory Hills Involved In Drug Incident. Three eighth-grade Hickory Hills Middle School girls were rushed to a hospital Thursday after apparently ingesting prescription drugs. The three - including one who reportedly brought the pills to school - were treated and released Thursday afternoon from Cox Medical Center North, officials said. "It's serious. You can tell them to say no all you want but often the person who offers them drugs is a friend or a friend of a friend," Principal Kelly Allison said. "It's not some guy standing in a long trench coat in a dark corner. It's really never like that - it's someone you know." [continues 648 words]
The Senate will soon be voting on the nomination of John Walters for drug czar. I urge everyone who is interested in drug-law reform to ask our two senators to oppose Walters' nomination. Walters rejects a health-centered approach to substance abuse, and he insists on a continuation and expansion of the failed policy of trying to arrest our way out of the drug problem. He embraces a puritanical approach to substance use, claiming that rehabilitation is not the primary aim of arresting drug users, but that arrest and imprisonment serve primarily to punish people for their moral transgressions. [continues 111 words]
Port Coquitlam will not consider fees that penalize landlords with tenants who operate marijuana grow-ops but will cooperate with Coquitlam RCMP's anti-pot farm program. RCMP will be working with the cities of PoCo and Coquitlam on a new program to prevent the re-occurrence of marijuana grow operations in rental homes. Although the RCMP program has been confirmed, the report gives an outline of the intended approach. According to a report to council, when police investigators confirm a grow-op is present in an home, police will seize the equipment and BC Hydro will disconnect all power to the building. The RCMP will proceed with criminal prosecution and send a report to city staff detailing any interior modifications or violations present in the home. [continues 79 words]
