As our country mourns the deaths of eight police officers and a series of African-Americans killed during encounters with police, the question we all ask is, how can we stem this horror? One way would be to end the war against nonviolent drug users. More than 1.2 million Americans are arrested every year for simply possessing an illicit substance. It is widely recognized that the war disproportionately punishes African-Americans and is responsible for millions of confrontational interactions between law enforcement and blacks. Many of these anger-producing and potentially violent contacts would not take place without the drug war. [continues 653 words]
Stanton Also Wants Traveller Ethnicity Recognised A NEWLY appointed junior justice minister wants personal possession of all illegal drugs to be decriminalised as part of the Government's plan to tackle gangland crime. Minister of State for Equality, Migration and Integration, David Stanton, also plans to use his new position to convince Fine Gael colleagues to recognise the Travelling Community as a distinct ethnic minority group. Speaking for the first time since taking office, Mr Stanton also revealed Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald is supportive of both proposals. [continues 517 words]
As Opposition MLAs grilled B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Morris in question period Monday about escalating gun violence, Surrey RCMP was responding to the 31st shooting of 2016. And Burnaby RCMP announced that homicide investigators were being called in after the body of a shooting victim was discovered on Byrne Creek Trail. Surrey MLA Bruce Ralston said police are not doing enough to tackle the violence, which is linked to Metro Vancouver's drug trade. "They are not solving these cases. The violence is accelerating," Ralston said in an interview. "That's what people are really worried about. It's not just a low-level background noise. It is a major ongoing threat to public safety in neighbourhoods in Surrey and in Burnaby, for that matter." [continues 294 words]
Ravens left tackle Eugene Monroe has missed nearly half the team's games over the past two seasons, battling knee and ankle injuries in 2014, the concussion he sustained in the opening game of 2015 and the shoulder injury that ended his season. To deal with the pain, the seven-year veteran would like to use medical marijuana, which has been legal in Maryland since 2014. But because it's on the National Football League's list of banned substances, he would face a suspension if he tried. [continues 1170 words]
Petition Asks for More Illnesses on Approved List Medical marijuana advocates are mounting a petition drive and social media campaign to convince Gov. Bruce Rauner to greatly expand the program in Illinois - but the governor hasn't yet given any indication he would do so. The campaign is driven in part by industry officials who fear their businesses won't survive without more than the current 4,000 patients statewide. Joining them are patients with a variety of medical conditions, including chronic pain and common arthritis, who say they need medical marijuana to relieve their symptoms without the side effects of prescription drugs. [continues 842 words]
Thursday's Arizona Republic shares with us the latest smoke screen from the pro-legalized marijuana crowd. It includes the mandatory fake check made out to Arizona Schools and the catchy "Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol" label. Who would not support that all-American approach? It would be nice if those smoking their proposed legal product would be honest about what they want. This isn't about the schools or about comparisons to alcohol. This is about their specific desire to make something currently illegal legal. Period. [continues 66 words]
The High Taking Over Streets Is So Variable, It's Hard to Stop or Treat The man in the Mickey Mouse shirt was clinging to a light pole on H Street NE when police showed up, and then he dropped his pants. Another man near Eastern Market was laughing so hard that paramedics had trouble keeping him on a stretcher. A third, whom police found prancing through Capitol Hill, started kicking and screaming when eight police and fire officials tried to restrain him. [continues 1862 words]
Health: Strategy Would Address Harms to Public A community group that developed a recently launched program to fight fentanyl patch abuse now wants to create a strategy to combat drug abuse for the city. Sault Ste. Marie and Area Drug Misuse Strategy Committee wants to recruit more members they feel will be essential to help decide what the document should include, said interim chair Sandy Byrne. Invitations will be made by late April with meetings of the expanded group starting in May. Start date for the drug strategy with a goal of addressing the harms to the public associated with substance use is not known. [continues 577 words]
EDITOR: I was pleased to read Dennis Byrne's commentary ("Let's face it. Were a nation of addicts," Wednesday). Finally, somebody said it. My take is: marijuana use began as a culture phenomenon among folks protesting societies' mores. Then it spread to the fringe radicals on the left. And now it has been adopted as a mainstay of the progressive movement, a sort of logo of the left. The medical, then recreational, labels were adopted to give it a measure of legitimacy and to circumvent laws prohibiting drug use. Perhaps marijuana use is also a symptom of boredom, overpopulation, moral decay or others. Nevertheless, there is a clear inconsistency when marijuana is said to be medically good while tobacco and alcohol are deemed health hazards. For example, tobacco can hardly be advertised as "medical tobacco," nor can alcohol be sensibly formatted as "recreational drinking." Rod Hug Santa Rosa [end]
If we weren't such a nation of addicts, maybe hordes of drug smugglers wouldn't crash our borders to feed our habit. Maybe drug cartels wouldn't terrorize Mexico and Central America - our gift to our southern neighbors. Maybe drunks wouldn't kill so many on our highways, or our health-care system wouldn't be so overwhelmed and costly. Maybe not so many families would fall apart and our cities wouldn't be bloodstained by gang wars - or so many adolescent lives wasted before they could even get started. [continues 633 words]
Maybe drug cartels wouldn't terrorize Mexico and Central America - our gift to our southern neighbors. Maybe drunks wouldn't kill so many on our highways, or our health care system wouldn't be so overwhelmed and costly. Maybe not so many families would fall apart and our cities wouldn't be bloodstained by gang wars - or so many adolescent lives wasted before they could even get started. Time to face it: We've become a nation of addicts. So many addictions it's hard to list them all. Alcohol. Tobacco, nicotine and vaping on electronic cigarettes. Sugar, fat, junk food. Sex and pornography, the addictions of the mind, body and soul. [continues 589 words]
Regarding 'Science wins' (Your Views, Oct. 20): It would seem retired Navy Lt. Commander Al Byrne is a bit biased, being the CEO of Veterans for Compassionate Care. Medical cannabis has been available in pill form for quite some time. I urge everyone to vote 'no' on Amendment 2 because it has serious flaws. I do not want to be on the road next to someone driving under the influence of cannabis. Being a veteran of the Vietnam War, I have seen in a tactical situation how marijuana affects the ability to make split-second decisions. Public safety is the issue, and Amendment 2 as written is unacceptable. Stephen Burchett, Seffner [end]
Regarding 'Science wins:' Al Byrne uses the work of Melanie Dreher to support his view that marijuana is harmless, indeed even helpful, to pregnant women and their babies. Unfortunately, this work is only one work carried out on a very small sample of 33 users and 27 non-users in the early 1980s. Although this work is important, subsequent studies have disproved much of her work. In addition, today's marijuana is not your mother's marijuana. It is a much more potent form. [continues 257 words]
Regarding 'Don't let the 'Colorado Calamity' invade Florida' (Brad King, Other Views, Oct. 16): I will not argue the statistics as to how many dispensaries now operate in Colorado, but because law enforcement has failed to protect legal businesses is hardly the fault of cannabis or dispensary ownership. In Colorado, all violent crime is down. DUIs are down. Death by suicide and pharmaceutical overdose is down. Only burglary remains steady. Apparently, burglars do not use cannabis. The suggestion that cannabis in mother's milk is bad is a glaring example of medical cannabis ignorance. Melanie Dreher, RN, Ph.D, spent over 30 years in Jamaica studying pregnant moms for the U.S. government. She found that cannabis greatly relieved or eliminated morning sickness, with no ill effects to mom or fetus. The children born to these moms equaled or exceeded in intellect and social skills non-cannabis-using moms. [continues 96 words]
Critics Say It's Part of Future Push for Stricter Gun Law Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday started to sell his idea of loosening Illinois drug laws for possession of illegal substances like marijuana, heroin and cocaine, but some of those he has to convince said they're skeptical because he'll want tougher gun laws in return. The reception to Emanuel's plan to decriminalize marijuana statewide and reduce minor drug possession to a misdemeanor illustrated the difficult slog the mayor faces as he tries to secure a signature victory on violent crime, an issue that's been at the forefront of his tenure. [continues 1603 words]
A Lakeshore couple says their peaceful corner of the world has been shattered by construction of a large medical marijuana facility. A Lakeshore couple says they've spent the last several months watching the picturesque property they call "our little heaven" go to pot. Ed and Gloria Burling built their 1.7 acre home just off Manning Road on North Rear Road over 40 years ago. They have since planted hundreds of trees, their own pumpkin patch and created a tranquil setting in their rural neighbourhood just south of Highway 401. [continues 578 words]
Many Areas Make Peace With Pot, but Some Cops Ramping Up Arrests WEIRTON, W.Va. - Taped to the wall of pride inside the Hancock County drug task force's bare-bones office, a snapshot of eight marijuana plants draped over coat hangers serves as evidence of one more small triumph in the war on weed. That same image of a drug-filled closet is seared in Ryan Neeley's memory, but with a very different meaning. To Neeley, the photo is proof that in the same country where a town in Colorado features a marijuana vending machine, the same country with a president who said it is wrong for "only a select few" to be punished for smoking pot, possession of the drug can still be a life-altering experience, and not in a good way. [continues 2953 words]
Opponents of marijuana-law reform insist that legalization is dangerous-but the biggest threat is to their own bottom line. Patrick Kennedy, son of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, did several stints in rehab after crashing his car into a barricade on Capitol Hill in 2006, a headline-making event that revealed the then-US congressman for Rhode Island had been abusing prescription drugs, including the painkiller OxyContin. Kennedy went on to make mental health-including substance abuse-a cornerstone of his political agenda, and he is reportedly at work on a memoir about his struggles with addiction and mental illness. In 2013, he also helped found an advocacy group, Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana), which has barnstormed the country opposing the growing state and federal efforts to legalize pot. [continues 4143 words]
Illegal drugs are taking a terrible toll in London and Middlesex County, killing people in such shocking numbers that health officials plan a counterattack. Last year alone, 41 people died of drug overdoses, a death rate double the Ontario average. Put another way, nearly four times as many people died of overdoses as were killed in motor vehicle crashes. The scourge of drugs is clogging emergency rooms, taxing police and paramedics and outpacing services to help addicts, reveals a new report by the Middlesex London Health Unit. [continues 588 words]
Steep Rise in Arrests Reveals Disparities in Legal Approach Weirton, W.VA. - Taped to the wall of pride inside the Hancock County drug task force's bare-bones office, a snapshot of eight marijuana plants draped over coat hangers serves as evidence of one more small triumph in the war on weed. That same image of a drug-filled closet is seared in Ryan Neeley's memory, but with a very different meaning. To Neeley, the photo is proof that in the same country where a town in Colorado features a marijuana vending machine, the same country with a president who said it is wrong for "only a select few" to be punished for smoking pot, possession of the drug can still be a life-altering experience, and not in a good way. [continues 2788 words]
