Now that voters in the states of Colorado and Washington have legalized the sale of marijuana in their states, the showdown between these new state laws and current federal law that makes marijuana sales illegal in all states still looms. At least one Mississippi federal district judge and a pioneer in the drug court movement see Colorado and Washington as the first of many states to try to decriminalize marijuana - and he's worried about it. Southern District U.S. Judge Keith Starrett of McComb said in January that he had significant concerns about what is unfolding in Colorado and Washington - and that more states will follow. [continues 475 words]
STARKVILLE - After a recent column on the election results that made marijuana use and possession legal in two U. S. states, a thoughtful reader responded with a dissenting view. My column pointed out that now that voters in the states of Colorado and Washington have approved legalizing the sale of marijuana in their states, there is the inevitable showdown between these new state laws and current federal law that makes marijuana sales illegal in all states. The laws passed in Colorado and Washington allow the recreational use of marijuana and require that the states set up a bureaucracy to license, regulate and tax those sales. That regulatory system is expected to be very similar to the bureaucracies that exist in states to license, regulate and tax the sales of liquor, wine and beer. The reader wrote: "The federal government has no authority to regulate marijuana, and certainly none to ban it. It occurred to me recently that it took an amendment to the Constitution to ban alcohol, and the stroke of a pen to ban marijuana. What changed in the Constitution in the meantime? Nothing. [continues 377 words]
The Legislature's rather decisive vote to strike a blow at the supply of pseudoephedrine available in Mississippi for home meth labs represents a huge victory for state lawmen and a huge loss for drug companies and their lobbyists. Law enforcement agencies don't really have the political clout or the financial resources to lobby in the classic sense - nor should they have to engage in that nonsense. New moonshine? Crystal methamphetamine is the new moonshine in Mississippi. It's relatively easy to make, the precursors are cheap and readily available at a lot of locations in even the smallest Mississippi towns and the demand for the drug is high. [continues 241 words]
Robin Webb doesn't dodge tough questions about AIDS. He's a veteran. Webb, 49, of Jackson has been carrying the AIDS virus for the last 15 years after contracting the disease from what he said was "some sexual activity" in the 1980s. "I remember those horrible early days in the 1980s when this (AIDS) affected almost everyone I knew," said Webb. "So many people died, so many suffered and all of us were treated like outcasts." Today, Webb manages his illness as a chronic disease utilizing drugs that cost over $3,000 a month. "I'm on Medicaid and right now I'm getting what I need to fight the disease." [continues 905 words]
Justice Department Report Shows That Criminal Justice Experiment Is Working. JACKSON - As Gov.-elect Haley Barbour prepares to take office in January, he faces the conundrum of his no-new-taxes pledge on the campaign trail against the reality of a whopping $70 million deficit in the state's Department of Corrections. Simply put, Mississippi can't afford to house the prisoners we already have in the state's penal system - much less the new one's pouring in each day under the state's "85 percent" rule that mandates that prisoners serve at least that percentage of their original sentence before being eligible for parole. [continues 481 words]
As Gov.-elect Haley Barbour prepares to take office in January, he faces the conundrum of his no-new-taxes pledge on the campaign trail against the reality of a whopping $70 million deficit in the state's Department of Corrections. Simply put, Mississippi can't afford to house the prisoners we already have in the state's penal system - much less the new one's pouring in each day under the state's "85 percent" rule that mandates that prisoners serve at least that percentage of their original sentence before being eligible for parole. [continues 486 words]
As Gov.-elect Haley Barbour prepares to take office in January, he faces the conundrum of his no-new-taxes pledge on the campaign trail against the reality of a whopping $70 million deficit in the state's Department of Corrections. Simply put, Mississippi can't afford to house the prisoners we already have in the state's penal system - much less the new ones pouring in each day under the state's "85 percent" rule that mandates that prisoners serve at least that percentage of their original sentence before being eligible for parole. [continues 483 words]
As Gov.-elect Haley Barbour prepares to take office in January, he faces the conundrum of his no-new-taxes pledge on the campaign trail against the reality of a whopping $70 million deficit in the state's Department of Corrections. Simply put, Mississippi can't afford to house the prisoners we already have in the state's penal system - much less the new ones pouring in each day under the state's "85 percent" rule that mandates that prisoners serve at least that percentage of their original sentence before being eligible for parole. [continues 457 words]
Crack, Marijuana And "Crystal Meth" Now The Drugs Most In Demand Some things never change in Mississippi: The bad guys are still "cooking," but the recipe has changed. Corn mash is out. Ammonia and pseudoephedrine are in. In 2003, there were 443 manufacturing operations working across Mississippi that weren't listed in the Mississippi Development Authority's files - all illegal drug laboratories and most manufacturing illegal "crystal" methamphetamine or "crack" cocaine. There are more such laboratories operating across the state as you read this sentence. The 443 cited are simply the ones discovered and destroyed in the state in 2003 by federal, state and local law enforcement agents. [continues 905 words]
Make no mistake about it - Ole Miss is the place to be if you want to study pharmacy. Folks who matriculate there are brainiacs and they leave Oxford knowing the difference in Prevacid and Preparation H and then some. Ole Miss pharmacists have taken care of me all my life - from the late Jack Stribling in Philadelphia to Ricky Hunt now in Forest. I've reached the stage of life in which there's one pill for high blood pressure, one for high cholesterol, another for something called "high triglycerides"(don't ask, it has something to do with my fondness for the pulled pork plate at Homer's Barbeque) and two other big green pills that are roughly the chemical equivalent of Hamburger Helper for the pancreas. [continues 431 words]
