Officers Operating In Fog Of 'Very Vague' Legislation The medical marijuana law passed by Washington voters in 1998 has police in a haze as they try to enforce it. "The Legislature needs to go back to work and tighten things up, and that's fine," Mountlake Terrace Police Chief Scott Smith said Friday. "They do that all the time." The confusion was exemplified this week in Marysville when police had to block the street and evacuate the area around State Avenue and Eighth Street NE, including the City Center Motel, 810 State Ave. During the evacuation, officers encountered one room at which no one answered the door, but officers wanted to ensure no one was inside, Marysville police Cmdr. Ralph Krusey said. [continues 892 words]
Senate Can Pass Reforms I encourage all readers to support Senate bill 1931 because it would implement six positive reforms to the United States' disastrous forfeiture statutes. The bill would put the burden of proof on the government, rather than the current law that requires people to prove that their property is "innocent." The bill allows for the release of property pending final disposition of a case, as opposed to causing innocent property owners undue hardship while their cases are dragged through the federal court system. [continues 166 words]
NEW YORK - Some of the small tablets are shaped like the familiar Playboy magazine rabbit ears and are known as Bunnies. Others are called Buddhas because they bear his likeness. Some are stamped with the Nike swoosh, a shamrock or Dino the Dinosaur. All are part of an alarming explosion in MDMA, the synthetic psychoactive drug known as Ecstasy. Seizures of the tablets, which have become something of a cult drug among teenagers in nightclubs around the countly, have increased 450 percent between 1998 and 1999, a federal law enforcement official said. The U.S. Customs Service is projecting a 1,500 percent increase this year from last. [continues 596 words]
MIAMI -- Smugglers have been moving increasingly large amounts of cocaine into Florida by way of Haiti, employing hiding places so ingenious that federal agents have had to drill into the keels of freighters to find the drugs. This month alone, agents seized more than a ton of cocaine stashed inside false compartments aboard several freighters from Haiti. They found an additional 160 pounds of the drug hidden inside barrels of butter aboard a commercial flight that arrived in Miami. "This particular incident of uncovering cocaine in the keel will force the organizations to come up with a new way to bring it in," said Frank Figueroa, lead investigator at the Customs Service office in Miami. [continues 342 words]
This was like interviewing a candidate for a Miss Teen USA competition. Mindi Nuner, 17, spoke of maturity, inner beauty, intelligence and success. Talk about the emergence of a swan. Hardly a model teen, when Mindi ran away from home at age 14 to live at a downtown Everett drug house, her parents were terrified of getting a call from the police, or the coroner. Mindi began smoking marijuana in the fifth grade. Three years ago, Mindi did every kind of drug except acid and heroin, she said. She was expelled from her Snohomish school for fighting and ran away to live with an older boyfriend. [continues 688 words]
With heroin addicts crowding methadone clinics in King County, some who depend of the alternative drug will be allowed to receive methadone treatment through Harborview Medical Center's pharacy. The hospital-based methadone clinic, believed to be one of the first of its kind in the nation, opened Monday. Health officials said they hoped adding the new service will help ease the logjam of addicts waiting for treatment in the Seattle area's three traditional clinics. [end]
Instead Of Jailing People For Drug Use, County Program Gives Them Tools To Kick Habits EVERETT - The celebration seemed out of place for Snohomish County Superior Court. In a room where he has handed out stiff punishment to numerous offenders, including one death penalty, Judge Richard Thorpe last week stepped down from his bench to shake a defendant's hand. The black-robed judge had congratulations, a broad smile and a certificate marking the young man's completion of an intensive drug-treatment program. [continues 1182 words]
No one invokes the sanctity of the First Amendment more often and more passionately than the media. When music companies are criticized for purveying the most repulsive misogynistic rap lyrics, they hoist the First Amendment flag. When newspaper reporters who've given confidentiality pledges refuse to testify about their sources, the flag is run up again. As it should be. For all its abuses, the First Amendment is perhaps the greatest of all bulwarks against the power of government. It turns out, however, that the TV networks are not quite the First Amendment purists they pretend to be. Dangle some cash in front of them and they will let the White House drug czar vet their scripts. [continues 637 words]
EVERETT -- Overcoming years of turf wars, the Everett Police Department's narcotics unit will merge with the Snohomish Regional Narcotics Task Force this month. "It's going to give us more latitude in how we deal with the mid- and upper-level dealers by getting them off the streets," Snohomish County Sheriff Rick Bart said Friday. "I've got no mercy for drug dealers." Bart's own brother has been charged with drug offenses. "We've worked for years to get this thing combined," Bart said. "It's been such a territorial thing, but we finally got it worked out. I think it's going to be a precursor of things to come in Snohomish County. They will bring even more resources to the table. [continues 533 words]
There's Still A Risky Job Left To Do -- Cleaning Up Toxic Chemicals Dave Morris, an expert in hazardous waste removal, is more afraid of the criminals he cleans up after than the toxic chemicals they leave behind. Morris, 65, has a license to clean. He is one of a handful of private contractors certified by the state Department of Health to remove and neutralize the chemical residues left by "cooks," the producers of methamphetamine and other illegal drugs. While toxic materials represent a hazard to Morris, the greatest risks have little to do with fumes or acid spills. [continues 1061 words]
The drugs of choice among young people in Snohomish County are heroin and meth, one expert said Friday. Martin McArthur, a drug counselor at the Evergreen Treatment Services detoxification facility, said results of a new nationwide survey don't hold true here. The survey said young people are into anabolic steroids and Ecstasy. Another local counselor said she has seen some of that, but McArthur said many young people here use harder drugs. While most of his clients are ages 18 to 25, he deals with younger teens too. [continues 359 words]
From Mexican black tar heroin coming up Interstate 5 to potent "B.C. buds" crossing the Canadian border and "Nazi" meth labs in Pierce and other counties, a report released yesterday by the White House drug office describes a complicated and growing threat from drugs in Washington state. And while the director of the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program in Washington state said law enforcement agencies haven't been overwhelmed by the increasing drug trade, they are hard pressed to stem the flow. [continues 821 words]
WASHINGTON - Americans love nice round numbers. Anticipation of a 200-yard game, the year 2000, or a 12,000 Dow can make us downright giddy. Try this one: 2,000,000. The folks at the Justice Policy Institute have vetted the trends, crunched the numbers and come up with a nice round prediction. On Feb. 15, 2000, America's prison and jail inmate population will top 2 million. What is involved, though, is a lot more than roundness, says JPI analyst Jason Ziedenberg. "What blew me away when I was doing this research was the whole issue of where we stand internationally," he told me. "Next year, America, with under 5 percent of the world's population, will have a quarter of the world's prison inmates." [continues 585 words]
Northern border patrols are operating at dangerously low levels. And Immigration and Naturalization Services keeps making the situation worse. These officers help assure illegal immigrants, drugs and criminals don't flow freely from Canada to the U.S. The officers would like to do more, but their budget has been held so tight, they don't even have enough staff to guard the border during the night. That's like Everett police only patrolling the city during the day. Gov. Locke, Sen. Patty Murray, Reps. Jack Metcalf, Doc Hastings and George Nethercutt Jr. have pled to INS to rectify this abysmal situation. [continues 301 words]
Mexico City - In a fresh embarrassment for its anti-narcotics efforts, the Mexican military announced Friday that it was investigating several soldiers for stealing about 15 pounds of cocaine from seized shipments that the army was supposed to incinerate. In an unusually sweeping investigation, the army has confined the 96th Infantry Battalion to its barracks in recent days, administering drug-detection tests to most of the 560 members in the unit. The battalion is based in Chihuahua, about 120 miles southwest of the Texas border. An official said it wasn't clear whether the thieves intended to sell the cocaine or use it themselves. [end]
What do 40,000 pounds of birdseed have in common with America's war on drugs? Nothing, says Jean Laprise, an Ontario farmer who shipped the birdseed to his American customers only to have it seized when it crossed the U.S.-Canadian border. Everything, say the U.S. government and its' critics, but for altogether different reasons. The birdseed, nearly 20 tons of it, has been locked in a Detroit warehouse since Aug. 9, when it was impounded by the U.S. Customs Service. The reason: the seed consists of sterilized seeds processed from industrial hemp. [continues 174 words]
Washington - A federal judge ruled Friday that the board of elections and ethics for the District of Columbia may count and announce the results of a referendum on the use of marijuana for medical purposes that was on the ballot in Novermber. District of Columbia residents voted last November on Initiative 59, a measure to allow chronically ill people like those suffering from AIDS, cancer and glaucoma, to use marijuana without facing prosecution. But just before the vote, Congress approved an amendment to the District appropriations bill that prohibited the city from using money to conduct a ballot initiative that "seeks to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties" for drug possession, use or distribution. [continues 5 words]
A DEA budget analyst was caught with his hand in a $6 million cookie jar (taxpayers' money folks). And a King County deputy prosecutor was caught bringing a methamphetamine pipe and a scale to the courthouse! (But the King County prosecutor's spokesperson said that there was no indication he used the pipe or drugs during work!) Two reasons to re-think our current drug policy: 1. Because it is way too expensive! (Some estimates say the budget for the "war on some drugs" is larger than NASA's!) 2. Because it is not stopping very many people from using drugs. [continues 54 words]
Our media, accustomed to demonizing marijuana and its users at every turn, cannot sit comfortably with the idea of an unpunished and unrepentant smoker. But where is the angle for the story? Where is the "amotivational syndrome"? How to tie in marijuana's debilitating effects on performance? Rebagliati's intelligence and masterful ability do not lend themselves easily to the "slacker" angle. The question remains: How do we reprimand, parody or at least dismiss this oddity? The American drug war industrial complex cannot dare, for a moment, acknowledge what tens of millions of Americans already know-that most adult marijuana smokers are just like you and me. They're not demons, they're not immoral, and they're not necessarily dimwitted dudes. Canadians are light years ahead of us on this one. To them our relentless drug war obsessions must appear to be paranoid delusions in a class all our own. Ross Rebagliati will return to his homeland a national hero, and rightfully so. Kevin Nelson Bow, WA [end]
