VERNON - The Vernon Police Department has pulled out of a regional drug enforcement task force, citing a philosophical difference between the local state's attorney's office and task force officials. The Vernon department formally pulled out of the East Central Narcotics Task Force last week after nearly 20 years of working with nearby departments on drug investigations, seizures, and enforcement actions. Instead, police will pool their resources with a statewide narcotics task force administered by the state police. The narcotics task force was made up of Vernon, Manchester, South Windsor, East Hartford, and Glastonbury and was designed to allow those departments to combine resources to track illegal drug use in the area. [continues 547 words]
'Pot Princess' Case Highlights Weaknesses Of Rockefeller Drug Laws On Sept. 9 "NYU pot princess" Julia Diaco pleaded guilty to felony possession and sale of narcotics. Under the plea bargain worked out by the district attorney, Diaco was sentenced to a 10-month stay at a rehab facility in rural Idaho and five years probation. Diaco, who was a freshman at NYU last year, was arrested last spring on the way to a pre-arranged sale of $1,000 worth of marijuana to an undercover police officer. According to police, Diaco was running a supermarket of pot, cocaine, LSD and other hallucinogenics out of her Hayden dorm room, and had sold drugs to undercover officers eight times in a six-month span. [continues 715 words]
