Have you heard the news? Stephen Harper thinks he's Ronald Reagan. "The Conservative government is set to launch a regressive war on drugs," a Liberal press release says. The war is scheduled to start this week, when the government releases a new National Drug Strategy that will -- according to a report in this newspaper last week -- get tough on drugs. More law enforcement. More treatment and prevention. But less "harm reduction" -- including the end of support for "Insite," Vancouver's safe-injection facility. [continues 818 words]
Drinking And Driving Charge Dropped A woman arrested for drug possession had her drinking and driving charge dismissed in Sarnia court Tuesday because she was the subject of an unlawful police strip search. But Shelley DePaepe, 35, of Sarnia, was fined $600 for possession of cocaine and marijuana that was discovered during her arrest for impaired driving at an April 13, 2006 RIDE check in Sarnia. Justice Mark Hornblower ruled the strip search done by a female officer at the Sarnia police headquarters was unlawful, citing a Supreme Court ruling on the Charter of Rights protection from unreasonable searches. [continues 292 words]
Inquiry Hears How Smuggling Led To Death Despite strip searches, inmates have still been able to smuggle contraband into the Calgary Correctional Centre, the centre's director testified in court on Wednesday. The testimony was part of the ongoing fatality inquiry into the death of Dale Patrick Woodcock, 43, who was found unresponsive in his cell on June 4, 2005. A toxicologist determined the cause of death was an overdose. "Obviously, our first line of defence is a thorough strip search . . . on every offender," Ed Vandal, director at the centre, told Judge Terry Semenuk and lawyers for Woodcock's wife, the City of Calgary and the Crown prosecutor's office. [continues 202 words]
Re. "School to push ahead with drug dog plan", Star, Feb. 2. Using dogs to sniff kids in schools is obscene. It teaches kids that they are not people; they are prisoners or property. That said, anyone stupid enough to actually bring their drugs to school deserves everything they get! But since we are already teaching kids that they should obey The State without any questions, why not just make them all pee in a cup before school? Or, maybe daily strip searches? That should keep them from thinking for themselves and scare them into being good little obedient robots, which is, apparently, the whole point. Russell Barth Federal Medical Marijuana Licence Holder Ottawa [end]
Despite The Costs, 84 Percent Of Employers Now Require Screenings As a human resources coordinator for a local company, Kathleen Rehberg faithfully carries out her employer's policy of regularly testing employees for illegal drug use. As an employee, the Mulberry resident also submits to the tests. And her experience makes her wonder whether drug testing is worth the time and money. Rehberg has received inconclusive results from her past three drug screenings, which followed the common procedure of analyzing a urine sample. She was told she had a diluted specimen, probably reflecting her habit of drinking at least 100 ounces of water a day, in keeping with her doctor's recommendation. [continues 1179 words]
LANCASTER - The second inmate in one week was treated for using heroin in the Fairfield County Jail. Marilyn L. Meadows, 54, of Lancaster, was taken by deputies to Fairfield Medical Center early Saturday morning. She since has been returned to the jail on Wheeling Street. Officers only discovered a male inmate high on heroin a week ago today. He apparently used the drug while in jail. Fairfield County Sheriff Dave Phalen has increased the number of strip searches and will bring drug-sniffing dogs into the jail more often. He also is promising to do more random searches of the dorms and cells. [continues 522 words]
Drugs are a fact of life in jail, sometimes with deadly consequences. Inmates' lawyers say drugs are a way to keep peace between cells. But it's a problem that reduces inmates' hopes for rehabilitation -- and a better life on the outside. The prison guard at Wilkinson Road jail knew something was up when inmates gathered up the biggest bag of canteen goodies she had ever seen. Paula Colford, a 15-year corrections officer at the Vancouver Island Regional Corrections Centre, told a coroner's inquest that canteen items -- candy bars, sausage sticks, juice boxes -- form a currency of exchange in prison. Colford suspected a drug deal was going down when she saw the pile growing. [continues 1197 words]
Prison Officials Believed Man Had Swallowed Heroin An inmate was shackled to a chair for five and a half days without exercise or sleep at the state prison in Buena Vista, because officials suspected him of swallowing bags of heroin and wanted to collect the evidence. Lights in the room were never turned off, and inmate Brian Willert, 29, was strip-searched and cavity-searched 17 times, even though a guard sat a few feet away watching him constantly. Chaffee County District Court Judge Charles M. Barton threw out the evidence - which Willert eventually managed to produce - ruling that it resulted from an unreasonable search. He said prison officials could have accomplished the same thing in a few hours by obtaining a court order to administer a laxative. [continues 654 words]
PORTSMOUTH -- The school district hopes to expand its search-and-seizure policy by spelling out that students can expect their cars, lockers and desks to be searched at any time, and that police canines will be used on school property. The School Board's policy committee reviewed a draft of the new rules Monday. The current policy is brief and addresses inspection of student lockers only to safeguard students' "well-being." Assistant City Attorney Kathleen Dwyer presented the committee with a draft of the expanded policy, which will go before the School Board for approval at a later date. [continues 278 words]
In the 1990s in Chicago, it was not uncommon to read the Monday newspapers and learn that 12 kids had been shot and killed over the weekend, compliments of the drug war and the turf wars caused by drug prohibition. This past weekend, the drug war took us to a new low when 13 of its victims were paralyzed and killed in Chicago from its newest rage -- Fentanyl-laced heroin. Reportedly, Fentanyl-laced heroin produces a better high sought by addicts in an effort to repeat the euphoria of their first use of heroin. [continues 511 words]
The drug smuggling, the gang violence and the cat-and-mouse game between organized crime and the prison officers at the California Institution for Men is as old as the 66-year-old prison itself. David Bauman / The Press-Enterprise Correctional officers with the Investigative Services Unit at the California Institution for Men in Chino frisk inmates for drugs during a surprise search. The only thing new is the Security Squad of the Investigative Services Unit. It's an elite team of corrections officers, who ferret out drug smuggling and gang activity both inside and outside the prison. [continues 683 words]
PARTS OF AMERICA declared war on Mexico yesterday for its decision to decriminalise the personal use of cocaine, LSD, heroin and other drugs. This "hostile action by an ally", as San Diego's mayor screamed, could send Americans rushing to party in Cancun -- and addicts preying on Americans to fund their habit. What's new? The Mexicans are wrong to think they can stamp out drugs barons just by reprieving small-time users and refocusing police resources. But they have at least recognised that most recreational users do little harm to themselves, or others. [continues 944 words]
TALLAHASSEE - A black Delray Beach family trumpeted their faith in God and the U.S. legal system after a jury awarded them $2 million in damages Thursday upon deciding that five white North Florida sheriff's deputies had violated their civil rights. "I am happy that I came and did what I had to do," 20-year-old Cynthia McCloud said. "It's been really hard to sit and listen to everything again. I got through it because my mom and my family were here supporting me." [continues 703 words]
Warns Criminal Charges May Be Dismissed VANCOUVER -- A B.C. Supreme Court judge has warned that criminal charges may be dismissed regularly if the Vancouver Jail continues to violate rules on when and how it conducts strip searches. Madam Justice Elizabeth Arnold-Bailey sharply criticized the practice of conducting strip searches of virtually everyone who is brought to the jail in her ruling that a drug suspect's Charter rights were violated. The judge declined to throw out trafficking charges against Zhou Peng Wu, saying it was "not one of those clearest of cases in which a stay is warranted." [continues 486 words]
State Considers Changes In System To Break Cycle Of Crime FOND DU LAC -- Less than a year ago, Samantha Luther entered prison stressed, depressed and three months pregnant. As a convicted drug offender who violated her probation, she faced a year's hard time, with three months credit for sitting in the Waushara County Jail. "I don't know what went wrong with me," said Luther, a petite, 21-year-old who began wearing prison "greens" when most of her peers were wearing new college sweatshirts. "I had a good childhood, but I felt useless and out of place." [continues 2660 words]
Attorney Mark Merin has filed a class-action lawsuit against the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office for what he alleged is the practice of "illegal strip searches." Humboldt County Sheriff Gary Philp said his office follows the law pertaining to strip searches and pat-downs. "Ms. (Ellin) Spellman, who is the plaintiff in this case, was up vacationing with a girlfriend (on the North Coast)," Merin said. "She was pulled over for driving (with a blood alcohol level) over the legal limit ... and she was over the legal limit." [continues 917 words]
If heroin trafficker Nicholas Cypui Chan can't get vegetarian meals in prison, then Queen's Bench Justice Peter McIntyre should have ordered the prison to supply the meals, not to release Chan before his term is up. Chan, 27, was initially sentenced to 7 1/2 years for selling $7,000 worth of heroin. After serving a little more than two years, he now can get out in less than a year, with a paltry three years of probation substituting for the remainder of the time he was to spend behind bars. [continues 235 words]
Weed Wars: Additional Searches By Property Owners Likely To Meet Resistance From Tenants Sick of a "losing battle" against illegal marijuana grow-ops, frustrated municipalities across the Lower Mainland are beefing up their civic arsenals with tough new dope-busting bylaws. Tired of waiting for Ottawa to pass two-year-old legislation that would double jail time for large-scale grow operators, and fed up with lenient sentences that put only 10 per cent of convicted B.C. bud growers in jail, nearly a dozen Lower Mainland municipalities have enacted so-called "remediation bylaws" that hold property owners financially accountable when grow-ops are discovered on their property. [continues 999 words]
The National Commission Hears Allegations Of Beatings And Sexual Assaults In Prisons In Florida And Elsewhere. TAMPA - "Goon squads" of guards roam Florida's prisons, beat up inmates and enforce vigilante justice while the top brass turns a blind eye, a former state Department of Corrections warden told a commission on Tuesday. And many others among 2.2-million incarcerated Americans suffer such abuses as rape, unneeded strip-searches and inadequate medical care, members of the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons were told Tuesday in Tampa. [continues 798 words]
MIAMI -- Miami-Dade County agreed Monday to pay $4.55 million to thousands of people strip-searched at its jail, in a tentative settlement reached when three women activists sued after their arrests during free-trade demonstrations in 2003. Judith Haney, Liat Mayer and Jamie Loughner last year filed a class- action lawsuit against Miami-Dade after the Free Trade of the Americas meeting in downtown Miami, alleging they had unnecessarily been subjected to invasive strip searches. On Monday, the county agreed to settle the suit and pay the settlement to more than 100,000 people. [continues 309 words]
