Cost To Apply For Medical Pot Use ID Card Is $106 Shasta County supervisors used a proposed application fee increase Tuesday as a chance to voice their displeasure at a state program giving identification cards to medical marijuana patients. The board voted 4-1 to raise the application fees for medical marijuana identification cards from $53 to $106. Supervisor Les Baugh dissented, arguing the program has failed to draw the number of applicants that had been expected. Shasta County has 50 cardholders, far short of the 300 that had been predicted. [continues 405 words]
Shasta County supervisors voted 4-1 this morning to start a needle-exchange program along with an education campaign against illegal drug use. The majority agreed with the Department of Public Health, which argued the program would curb the spread of hepatitis and HIV and give the county an opportunity to offer help to addicts. "I think on the whole this proposal is a very reasoned approach which balances the concerns in the community," Supervisor Mark Cibula said. Supervisor Linda Hartman dissented, saying she agreed with the education campaign but not the needle exchange. She said public officials should "send a clear message" that illegal drug use is wrong. [continues 85 words]
Having failed in a 3-2 vote in June, the notion of offering needle exchanges in Shasta County will return to the Board of Supervisors today. The county Department of Public Health is proposing a revised plan in which a syringe-exchange program would be started along with a public education campaign against illicit drug use. Used syringes would be traded for new, sterile ones twice a week at the homeless outreach HOPE (Health Opportunities for People Everywhere) van, acting Public Health Director Donnell Ewert said. The van parks in front of the county health department on Breslauer Way. [continues 419 words]
Physicians: Exchange Plan Could Help To Reduce HIV, Hepatitis Cases In County Physicians are criticizing Shasta County supervisors' rejection this week of a needle exchange program requested by the Department of Public Health. Dr. Ron Reece, past president of the North Valley Medical Association, said the supervisors "missed an opportunity" to reduce the spread of hepatitis and HIV and try to rescue drug users from their addictions. "I was disappointed," Reece said of the board's 3-2 vote Tuesday to reject a needle exchange as well as a plan to allow pharmacists to sell needles without a prescription. [continues 385 words]
Board To Consider Funding For Dam Duty, Boat Patrols Law enforcement in Shasta County would get a boost of about $240,000 under a handful of grants and spending initiatives going before the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. Supervisors will consider devoting money for extra boating safety patrols during the Memorial Day weekend, augmenting the Sheriff's Department's overtime budget and accepting reimbursement for guarding Shasta Dam in the aftermath of Sept. 11. In a separate discussion, board members may accept $47,842 from the state for the drug testing defendants under Proposition 36, the drug treatment initiative passed by California voters in 2000. [continues 273 words]
Shasta County will consider hiring nine new employees and finding a location to implement Proposition 36, the drug and alcohol treatment initiative approved by California voters in November. The Board of Supervisors will decide Tuesday how to spend $337,846 in state funds earmarked for Shasta County under the initiative, which requires that certain adult offenders be sentenced to substance-abuse treatment rather than jail. The money may be used to hire three social workers, two deputy probation officers, two office clerks, a staff services analyst and a legal clerk, and to find and equip a building in Redding for the program. [continues 229 words]
A review of Shasta County's 6-year-old diversion program for substance-abusing criminals shows that people who go through the program are significantly less likely than other offenders to get back into trouble. A study done for the Shasta County Superior Court found that graduates of what is often referred to as "drug court" commit fewer parole violations and are one-seventh as likely to go to state prison as are others with drug-related convictions. Superior Court Judge James Ruggiero hailed the findings as proof that the Addicted Offender Program he started in January 1995 is nudging addicts into recovery and making the community safer. [continues 440 words]
Program's Record Of Success Convinces Leaders To Step In When State Funds End Shasta County supervisors reacted with shock as Holly Hetzel showed them pictures of children as young as 3 months old who'd tested positive for methamphetamine after a raid on their homes by law enforcement. The jarring images, shown at a recent meeting, prompted the elected officials to take the 18-month-old Drug-Endangered Children (DEC) program into their own hands after Gov. Gray Davis' veto of a funding bill threatened to kill the program at the end of this month. [continues 534 words]
