Supervisors OK Measure Aimed At Halting Disease. South Bay's Don Knabe Opposes It. A divided Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors narrowly approved setting aside $500,000 for a needle exchange program that will make the controversial service available in local communities other than the city of Los Angeles for the first time. On a 3-2 vote, with Supervisors Don Knabe and Mike Antonovich opposed, the board agreed that the county's public health services agency should fund local nonprofit groups to provide clean syringes to drug users in an effort to curtail the spread of HIV, hepatitis and other potentially fatal, infectious diseases. [continues 470 words]
THE owner of Scotland's first cannabis cafe has been fined UKP 500 after admitting allowing the drug to be smoked on the premises. Paul Stewart, 37, of Cadiz Street, Edinburgh, yesterday admitted permitting cannabis resin to be smoked in The Purple Haze Cafe in Portland Place, Edinburgh, on 29 January this year - the day cannabis was reclassified from a Class B to Class C drug. John Barclay, the procurator-fiscal, told Sheriff Noel McPartlin at Edinburgh Sheriff Court that Stewart had declared his intention of operating his take-away cafe as a cannabis cafe between 4pm and 8pm. [continues 130 words]
For a half-century, California has been a drug battleground. Almost certainly, it will continue to be one. Here is what our shadowy and sometimes conflicted near-future probably will look like: Marijuana will remain illegal because residents are sharply divided over its dangers to young people. Heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines and psychedelics still will be illegal because of general agreement they can be addictive or de-stabilizing to adults, as well as teens. Law enforcement agencies will continue to root out marijuana farms and methamphetamine labs, both primarily controlled by Mexican drug cartels. However, the authorities will be restrained from seizing drug dealers' property and selling it to finance drug-interdiction efforts. The money instead will go to drug treatment programs. [continues 1982 words]
