Six years ago, a tragedy occurred in a Medina drugstore when a man addicted to painkillers walked in with a gun and demanded drugs. The cop who responded shot and killed the man, but was seriously wounded himself. At that time, I suggested starting a program of registering such addicts and getting them their drug in a safe and sane manner. I questioned if the "war on drugs" was really worth an incident such as this. Last December, another police tragedy occurred in Buffalo. The youth who shot two cops said he acquired his gun for protection from the gangs. [continues 95 words]
Two Years After Sting Operation Sent 43 To Jail, Activists Say U.S. Drug Policy Must Change TULIA, Texas -- The nation's drug-policy debate was acted out on the streets of this Panhandle town Sunday when protesters held a rally to mark the two-year anniversary of a drug sting that sent 15 percent of Tulia's black population to jail. About 225 people gathered in a local park for the Never Again! Rally against what they claim is a failed drug war waged on the nation's poor minorities. They say the Tulia drug sting is emblematic of the nation's inept drug policy. [continues 951 words]
Groups Schedule Ride To Raise Awareness Of Alleged Injustices In Tulia To mark the two years that have passed since one of Texas' most infamous instances of racial targeting and to raise awareness about the perceived injustices of U.S. drug policy, a coalition of drug-policy reform groups on Monday announced the July 23 "Tulia Freedom Ride" from Austin to Tulia, Texas. The ride is scheduled to coincide with the second anniversary of a July 23, 1999 incident, in which the Swisher County Sheriff's Department arrested 43 citizens of the Panhandle town of Tulia. [continues 499 words]
The isolation at Colorado's ADX prison is brutal beyond compare. So are the inmates This is it. The end of the line. The toughest ``supermax'' prison in the United States. If you make it here, the odds are you'll be an old man when you get out of custody -- if you get out. ADX-Florence -- governmentese for ``administrative maximum'' -- is the place where the federal government puts its ``worst of the worst'' prisoners, mainly felons sent from other federal prisons after they killed their fellow inmates, or on occasion, their guards. [continues 1585 words]
Drinks Left Inside As They Puff Away "No Smoking'' signs were tacked up in bars all over California yesterday, and hard-core smokers nursing a scotch or a beer were so angry that if they had been allowed to light up, the smoke would have been coming out of their ears. Patrons of Bay Area bars railed against the new state law that bans smoking in bars -- the toughest such law in the nation -- and there were mad mutterings about the loss of a comfortable refuge and the need to repeal the law. [continues 867 words]
LOS GATOS It could happen to anybody. It did happen to Judy Peckler. On a bright Saturday morning last January, two investigators from the Santa Clara County coroner's office knocked on the front door of her house in Los Gatos and handed her a piece of paper. In dry language, it told Peckler that she had lost half of her family the night before: Two of her children and her husband were dead. The California Highway Patrol says they were killed by a drunken driver. [continues 1696 words]
