State to Become First to Set Up Medical Marijuana Distribution, Over Fed Objections New Mexico's new medical marijuana law, which provides a cultivation and distribution center for patients to access the drug, might conflict with federal law. New Mexico is set to become the first U.S. state to set up a cultivation and distribution system for medical marijuana, sewing the seeds of a possible showdown with federal drug enforcement authorities. Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democratic presidential candidate, signed the "pot bill" into law this year and tasked the state's Department of Health with establishing a way to grow and distribute the crop to patients by Oct. 1. The new law may be at odds with federal law, which supersedes state laws, and tightly controls who can grow marijuana and for what purposes. [continues 249 words]
John Stossel [ABC News] Good evening, I'm John Stossel John Stossel [ABC News] And this is "20/20." Announcer: Deborah Roberts continues, with "Privilege In America." Deborah Roberts [ABC News] [OC] In our court system, we're all supposed to be equal under the law, but are we really? Jim Avila has a tale of Texas justice that might make your blood boil. Radio Commentator: WVAV, Fort Worth, Dallas Jim Avila [ABC News] [VO] This is a story of privilege in a Texas court, where money and connections are not supposed to count, where we find one judge and two men from very different sides of the tracks who appear to get anything but equal justice. One man has been in prison 16 years, and may never get out. [continues 2240 words]
Agents Say Marijuana Crackdown in San Francisco Could Lead to More Arrests Authorities described this week's raids on San Francisco pot clubs as one of the largest drug crackdowns in the area in recent memory, and said the arrests were the first step in uncovering a major international drug operation. U.S. Attorney Kevin V. Ryan said agents raided three pot clubs that operated as fronts for marijuana and Ecstasy trafficking, and warned that federal drug laws would be strictly enforced even in cities tolerant of medical marijuana. [continues 341 words]
Pot vs. Privacy Oct. 14 - David Noy doesn't deny he had a few ounces of marijuana in his house. He doesn't even deny he had some plants growing in his basement. He just doesn't think he should go to jail over it. And the second-highest court in Alaska has agreed with him. The state Court of Appeals cited the right to privacy as the reason for its decision, and the ruling has thrown drug enforcement officials into confusion. [continues 1029 words]
U.S. Keeping Close Eye on Canada Pot Proposal May 16-- Resentful Canadian legislators who want to decriminalize carrying around a decent-sized stash of marijuana are accusing their prime minister of giving in to U.S. meddling aimed at nipping the domestic drug plan in the bud. Canada delayed introducing a proposal to decriminalize marijuana possession after its justice minister met Tuesday in Washington with U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. Prime Minister Jean Chretien is taking a pounding from opposition legislators angered that his administration floated the proposal with U.S. officials before discussing it with them. Reacting to Justice Minister Martin Cauchon's meeting with Ashcroft, New Democrat leader Jack Layton said, "There goes Canadian sovereignty up in smoke," The Associated Press reported. [continues 978 words]
Q&A: Psychologist Jeffrey Schaler Dr. Jeffrey Schaler If you're addicted to something, whose fault is it? As ABCNEWS' John Stossel reports, "don't blame the addict" is the message we often hear from treatment facilities. But psychologist Jeffrey Schaler says we're stronger than we think, and that overeating, smoking and other so-called addictions are things we can choose to control. "Addiction is a behavior and all behaviors are choices," says Schaler, author of the book Addiction Is a Choice. [continues 1615 words]
THE BEST, WORST, AND WEIRDEST ADS OF 2002 It has been a weird and wonderful year in advertising, and one in which the industry was called upon to promote some unusual messages, like instructing Americans on the meaning of freedom, and discouraging drug use on the grounds of anti-terrorism. Advertisements That Stirred Us Up in 2001 Patriotic Ads Stir Some Controversy For the first time in years, Bob Garfield of Advertising Age magazine has given out three four-star awards to commercials. He spoke to Good Morning America about the year in advertisements. [continues 795 words]
FBI Allowed Drug Gang Violence to Continue for Seven Months, Lawyer for Accused Gangster Says Dec. 9 -- The FBI didn't just infiltrate the notorious Nuestra Familia prison gang, it allowed an informant to continue the group's violent and criminal activities for seven months, pulling off drug and gun deals and the killing of a rival gang leader, a defense attorney for one of the men accused in the case alleges in a court filing. Federal investigators refuse to comment on the case, saying they will eventually answer in court, and at least one local law enforcer calls the charge bogus. [continues 1453 words]
Police See Pot Growing Turning Into A Big Business Oct. 30 - Detective Eric Anderson has been in on plenty of busts of marijuana-growing operations in Klickitat County, Wash., but none of them prepared him for what he, along with state and federal agents, found in a remote ravine near the White Salmon River. It wasn't just the size of the operation - some 6,000 plants on three separate plots within a 2-square-mile area - but that the people who worked there had built shacks where they slept and cooked, had lugged in workout equipment and built an elaborate, sophisticated irrigation and misting system to keep the plants growing and blossoming. [continues 1652 words]
The Taliban Is Gone, But Local Interests Keep the Afghan Drug Trade Alive Afghanistan's vaunted heroin trade is back -- and many of its proceeds are going to likely terror supporters as well as members of the incumbent government, experts told ABCNEWS. This month, the United Nations' Office of Drug Control Policy said in a report that preliminary surveys had confirmed "a major resurgence" of opium poppy cultivation in the Central Asian country. "It could be considerably high and considerably serious," said UNODCP spokesman Kemal Kurspahic. "We can assume that Afghanistan will resume its No. 1 spot at the production table." [continues 1089 words]
Will The New Batch of Anti-Drug Ads Work? A new round of anti-drug ads that start running on TV today pack a tough message about the "terrible things" - from street violence to drug cartels - that drug users unwittingly support. But the question that has haunted past anti-drug ad campaigns are expected to resurface with this batch. Will the ads actually work? Going For Guilt One of the ads introduces marijuana user "Stacey," hanging out with two friends. It then shows an image of her marijuana dealer, before moving up the drug chain to the person who supplies Stacey's dealer with pot. The next image is the kicker. [continues 649 words]
Feds Go After All-Night Music Parties Generational showdowns abound in music history. In the Prohibition era, flappers and free-flowing jazz and booze irked authorities. Decades later, buttoned-down elders condemned Woodstock as just a hippie drug fest. Now, politicians are targeting raves, the all-night electronic music and dance marathons held anywhere from nightclubs to open fields -- also known these days as "massives," or "desert parties." Young devotees of rave culture claim that no musical genre in recent memory has been so endangered by a misunderstanding political and ruling class. [continues 1474 words]
Nevada to Vote on Pot Legalization, Create State Agency to Regulate Sales Advocates for the decriminalization of marijuana could be on a real high in November if Nevada voters take the first step toward legalizing the drug in the state, but even supporters of the measure don't expect it to go through without a fight from Washington. The initiative, which would have to be passed again by the state's voters in 2004, would not only legalize possession and private use of up to three ounces of marijuana for persons 21 and older, it would authorize the state to regulate the growth, distribution and sale of the drug, much the way it regulates tobacco and alcohol. [continues 1371 words]
Canadian Company Sues United States Over Hemp Imports The drug war is boiling over into a trade dispute along America's northern border. A small Canadian company is using the 1994 NAFTA treaty to sue the U.S. government, claiming restrictions on hemp-containing foods have devastated their business. "Under international law they actually have the obligation to compensate the people whose business they're taking," said Todd Weiler, the lawyer representing Kenex, the company bringing the suit. In 1999, U.S. Customs agents impounded a shipment of Kenex hemp birdseed and issued recalls on other shipments by the company. [continues 418 words]
Those Resisting the Drug War Take Their Cause to Congress Don't let the forest green carpeting or the college dorm room motif fool you. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Law -- NORML, the people behind the effort to legalize marijuana -- have traded in their tie-dye, Birkenstocks and braids for neckties, wingtips and a haircut. (Most of them, anyway.) And they currently are in the midst of a mellow campaign to get their issue on the nation's radar screen -- in part by taking it off the nation's radar screen. [continues 1086 words]
Have you ever used illegal drugs? The government says a third of Americans have at some point -- and about 5 percent use them regularly. The number may be higher, because how many people honestly answer the question, "Have you used an illicit drug in the past month?" What should America do about this? So far, our approach has been to go to war -- a war that police departments fight every day. A war that U.S. politicians tackle in a different way than their European counterparts. And a war that is not going away. [continues 1399 words]
San Francisco Voters To Decide If City Should Grow Marijuana July 31 - Wayne Justmann already smokes marijuana daily to ease the pain of neuropathy. But now he wants to get it from a new supplier - the city of San Francisco. Voters in one of the nation's most progressive cities will confront a unique ballot question in November. Should the city of San Francisco grow marijuana? The ballot measure is not the brain child of fringe radicals. It comes directly from the city's Board of Supervisors. [continues 867 words]
For Some Religious Groups, Drug Laws Do More Harm Than Drugs Themselves June 20 -- For Jennifer Wallace, the revelation came four years ago, after she found out that a friend of hers who she knew came from a devout Christian family smoked marijuana, and she became worried about the young woman. Wallace, a devout Christian herself, started looking into the research on marijuana and what she found surprised her. She said she found no evidence to back up the horrible things she had heard about the drug, and when she searched the Bible for any reference to it she found nothing at all. So she began to wonder why some religious leaders seemed to favor stiff penalties for marijuana users. [continues 1171 words]
'It Takes Ahold of You' June 18 - On the surface, Debra Breuklander was a hard-working mother of three, a nurse, with an immaculate home in a middle-class, Midwestern suburb. But she had a secret. That secret - an addiction to the cheap and easily obtained drug methamphetamine - cost Breuklander everything, and it earned her a bunk for 35 years in Iowa's Mitchellville Correctional Facility. "It takes ahold of you and no matter what kind of super mom you want to be it will take you over," Breuklander told Good Morning America. [continues 861 words]
Drug Czar Says Anti-Drug Ads Fell Flat Over the past five years, the government has spent $929 million in taxpayer money on advertising that was aimed at discouraging kids from using drugs. But the man in charge of the war on drugs, John Walters, says that money may have simply gone up in smoke. A report commissioned by Walter's office, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, scrutinized the impact of anti-drug TV advertisements released between September 1999 and December 2001. It concluded that "there is no evidence yet consistent with a desirable effect on youth," and no significant decline in marijuana use during that time. In other words, the ads fell flat. [continues 728 words]
