Armed Traffic Stop Leads To Drug Fugitive's Arrest [ Photo- Morgantown Police Department officers S.E. Carl (above, from left) and J.H. Wells take up positions behind a cruiser so they can cover canine officer C. Lott and his police dog, Yukon. Lott and Yukon prepare to approach a stopped car on Cherry Street suspected to contain a fugitive wanted in Pennsylvania. The man was not in the car, but was captured later in Granville. Morgantown Police detective P.D. Mezzannotte (below, right) interviews one of two men who were in the Jeep that was stopped by MPD units on Cherry Street. One of the men was arrested for marijuana possession.] [continues 557 words]
TUNNELTON -- Preston sixth-graders agree that Preston Sheriff's Deputy Sgt. Bob Baylor is pretty funny, but he carries a serious message. "Snuff has battery acid in it," South Preston Middle School sixth-grader Cody Haskiell said. "And cigarettes have a lot of stuff in them," added his classmate, Ashley Johnson. "Smoking can kill you really fast," Summer Adams threw in, while Samantha Martin threw in the ultimate message "Don't do drugs!" Baylor was proud as he handed out T-shirts, rulers and diplomas to the 67 students at South during the school's Drug Abuse Resistance Education graduation ceremony. [continues 328 words]
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- A desire to discourage drug use among students is not a sufficient reason to justify 'suspicionless' drug screening targeted at student-athletes, parking-permit holders and extracurricular-activity participants, the state Supreme Court ruled. The justices turned down the Delaware Valley School District's attempt to have a lawsuit in Pike County dismissed, meaning a legal challenge seeking to block the testing filed by two sisters -- who had passed the drug screening and have since graduated -- and their parents can proceed. [continues 294 words]
Regina D. McKnight was found guilty in 1991 of killing a fetus by using cocaine. Surveys in California have put the number of women who take illegal drugs during pregnancy at about 11 percent. NEW YORK (KRT)-- Stacey Gilligan is accused of drinking so much vodka during her eighth month of pregnancy that her baby was born drunk. Tayshea Aiwohi is charged with consuming such huge amounts of crystal meth while she was pregnant that her son died of methamphetamine poisoning two days after his birth. [continues 1014 words]
BOSTON -- After all these years, I have finally come up with the definition of a liberal wimp. It's someone who feels sorry for Rush Limbaugh. Here is a man who has kept 20 million dittoheads on a closed loop of right-wing rhetoric for three hours a day, five days a week, for 15 years. Here is a man for whom the word "bombastic" was invented. Imagine what he would say about some "feminazi" caught popping 30 illegal pills a day. Imagine how forgiving he would be to an "environmental wacko" scoring OxyContin while tree-hugging. Or any liberal who had to be outed by the National Enquirer before he took "full responsibility for my problem." [continues 646 words]
The U.S. response to Canada potentially decriminalizing personal use of cannabis ("Patients getting government-grown pot in Canada," Aug. 27), is a serious threat. The article said, "U.S. officials have warned of tighter border security if Canada takes that step," and this is alarming for a number of reasons. First, many American states have already decriminalized cannabis, including Alaska. The Alaska Court of Appeals unanimously declared in an opinion released Aug. 29: Adults can possess up to 4 ounces of marijuana, for personal use in their home, because the state's interest in prohibiting them from doing so is not great enough to violate a citizen's right to privacy. [continues 117 words]
TORONTO -- Jari Dvorak scored two ounces of pot Tuesday and lit up, but -- unlike in the past -- the deal involved no back alley exchange or hiding from police. This time, the 62-year-old Dvorak went to a doctor to pick up his supply, making him one of the first patients to receive government-grown marijuana. He paid $245, tax included. "I just smoked some and it's doing the trick," said the HIV-positive Dvorak, one of several hundred Canadians authorized to use medical marijuana for pain, nausea and other symptoms of catastrophic or chronic illness. [continues 187 words]
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- California and other states that want to make marijuana available to sick or dying patients are flouting federal drug laws in much the same way that Southern states defied national civil rights laws, a senior Bush administration lawy er said. California is ground zero in a long tug of war with the federal government over the medical value of marijuana and the power of state governments and voters to make exceptions for people who may benefit from the illegal drug. [continues 329 words]
Molly Ivins was right to describe U.S. drug policy as "odd" and "tragicomic" ("Fear of crack worse than drug itself," July 13). But things are even worse than she described. Arrests for possession of marijuana -- a drug that has never, ever caused a fatal overdose and which has been repeatedly shown to be less addictive than tobacco and alcohol -- soared past 640,000 in both 2000 and 2001. While White House Drug Czar John Walt ers continues to crank up the "reefer madness" hysteria, other nations -- Canada, Great Britain and Belgium are among the latest -- have taken a sober look at the scientific data and moved toward ending arrests for marijuana possession. [continues 76 words]
AUSTIN, Texas It's an odd country, really. Our largest growth industries are gambling and prisons. But as you may have heard, crimes rates are dropping. We're not putting people into prison for hurting other people. We're putting them into prison for using drugs, and as we already know, that doesn't help them or us. Our entire system of criminal justice is becoming more and more bizarrely prosecutorial -- a federal court has just held that the Miranda rule no longer applies. (That decision, by the way, was the result of a case brought by the Landmark Legal Foundation , the right-wing outfit that gets money from the same Richard Mellon Scaife so notable in the apparently endless effort to get President Clinton.) [continues 779 words]
A 13-year-old girl was jumped in Cleveland last month. Last week, charges were filed against her alleged assailants -- all 18 of them. According to authorities quoted in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, the girl's heritage was the catalyst for the beating. She's white, and apparently, some kids in Cleveland have a bizarre tradition that May 1 is Beat Up A White Kid Day. I'm not making this up. The unnamed girl is recuperating, and her accused attackers -- 12 girls, six boys, all black or Hispanic between the ages of 9 and 15 -- are facing charges of felonious assault, aggravated riot and ethnic intimidation. [continues 588 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. officials, already concerned about illegal drugs coming across the Canadian border, are warning that a Canadian plan to decriminalize marijuana use could lead to more inspections and long border delays. ''We don't want the northern border to be a trafficking route for drugs,'' said Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary for border and transportation security for the Department of Homeland Security. Hutchinson and other U.S. officials say the Canadian proposal is especially troublesome, considering how drug seizures along the vast northern border soared following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- in part because of heightened security. The amount of marijuana seized from Canada quadrupled in the year after the attacks. [continues 63 words]
Customs Officer Makes Good Find at Marion Shelter Nearly a year ago on the nose, Braddock got a new leash on life. Braddock's boundless energy is most likely what landed him in the Marion County pound in the first place, but it was also his ticket out. Because boundless energy, said U.S. Customs supervisory canine enforcement officer Ed Hoisington, is exactly what the customs department is looking for. Braddock, a German shepherd mix, first made the acquaintance of the Marion County Humane Society in January 2002 when he was brought in as a stray. But luckily for Braddock, Hoisington was close by, on one of his many procurement runs in the area. [continues 588 words]
To the Editor: It's hard to pay taxes when you know your tax monies are being wasted. That's why I was among the members of Families Against Mandatory Minimums handing out literature to taxpayers mailing their tax forms Wednesday. Some 55 percent of federal prisoners serve mandatory minimum drug sentences, which are determined solely by the weight and type of drug or the presence of a firearm during a felony offense. Nearly 88 percent are nonviolent offenders, and a majority are drug abusers. Yet five-, 10- and 20-year sentences are commonplace. [continues 144 words]
To the Editor: Kudos to Jack Anderson for his thoughtful article, "Criminalization of Personal Behavior Crowds Prisons," on Monday (April 14). An aspect of the drug war he didn't address is the collateral damage, which our most weak and vulnerable citizens become in our pursuit of sobriety. Sick and dying patients are denied safe and effective medicine, while we wage an unwinnable "war on marijuana." "Drug Czar" John Walters continues, unconscionably, to order the arrest and imprisonment of good, honest, tax-paying citizens in California and elsewhere, for simply wanting to take a medicine that lets them live. [continues 204 words]
As we win the war in Iraq, we should take a moment to consider another war here at home, a war we are losing and will always lose: the drug war. The number of people incarcerated in America passed the 2 million mark last year and continues to climb even as violent crime rates go down. Almost 60 percent of prisoners serving time in federal facilities are there for drug violations -- often minor ones. This is a sorry situation that we have brought upon ourselves in a puritanical quest to control personal behavior, albeit a behavior we abhor. [continues 563 words]
In the early '90s, I chaired the Governor's Committee on Crime, Delinquency and Corrections. In that role, prior to serving in the Legislature, I learned a lot about our state's prisons and jails, and our correctional system. A few years ago I was tasked with the responsibility of addressing some of the prison overcrowding issues and criminal sentencing laws in West Virginia. Over the past interim we conducted extensive study of our sentencing, our prisons and our new community corrections programs. [continues 717 words]
IRWIN, Pa. (AP) -- Some customers at an alleged Westmoreland County head shop targeted in a national drug paraphernalia sweep were arrested for trying to buy paraphernalia while a raid was being conducted, authorities said. North Huntingdon Township police Chief Charles Henaghan said his local officers were assisting federal agents when they made several arrests at a store called Heads-N-Threads on Monday. The arrests occurred as customers continued to come into the shop while uniformed police and federal drug agents swarmed the store, Henaghan said. Police said some customers had drugs on them. [continues 141 words]
Helicopter Gives Imaginations A Whirl At Local Schools Morgantown Police DARE Officer Joel Smith (left) and Officer M. Charlton show off a helicopter used for drug investigations as part of the DARE program at St. Francis Elementary School Wednesday. The officers also visited North Elementary with the copter Wednesday. The If you think standing around in a snowy field being swathed in sub-zero freezing winds Wednesday sounds like torture, you aren't a fifth-grader at St. Francis Central Catholic or North Elementary schools. [continues 280 words]
